What it Takes to be Malfoy
by Sugar and Migraines
Summary: She was thrust into chaos and expected to cope, but sometimes it takes a helping hand to stay strong. With a last name as infamous as Malfoy even the strength of a dark and brooding potions professor is welcomed with an open heart. Snape/OFC
1. Prologue

**This is the official warning here folks! If you're a cannon wh*re please leave now because I will not stick strait to plot, I'm just too lazy. I will keep it on track as much as I can but this is not a Harry-centric story. If bodily injuries are caused when your dreams of a perfectly in order story are shattered I apologize but it was your choice to hit your head on the wall!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I never will, now if you're done crushing my dreams please continue reading. *Sobs into handkerchief***

**Also, this is my first story so I would love feedback, offerings will be listed below.**

**(So... I'm editing before I post again, sorry for those of you who got excited!)**

The owl was tawny, with a white moon-like face, nothing mystical at all, no special beauty in its form, but it carried far more than its simple frame led you to believe. For two children it carried their dreams and hopes, their need to prove themselves and test their strengths. Swooping through the open window of the manor house it circled the vaulted ceilings and began to slow, spiraling down towards the long table in the center of the airy room. Four blond heads could be seen as it declined, two immediately glancing upwards at the sound of stalling wings. Young, eager eyes took in the sight of the barn owl laying its load on the corner of the table and moving to an alcove in the wall to rest from the trip.

In a way, for those two children, this was a defining moment, the moment they found out if they were strong enough, _magical_ enough, to continue living in the world they had always known. Though it would be no surprise to the children in the contents of the letters sitting on the table there was still a sense of obligated excitement in the wake of that one owl's arrival. The children's father, a man with long, silvery blonde hair lifted the letters from their place and handed one to the blonde woman beside him. With slow, careless motions he opened the letter he held and unfolded its contents of aged parchment, cold grey eyes flicked across the page and he smirked, for the twist of his lips could in no way be called a smile. The woman beside him did not have his patience and almost tore the envelope in her eagerness to see the words written in spiked cursive lettering. She grinned hugely in her excitement and turned to her son to share the good news. The man simply handed the thick parchment to the girl beside him.

The girl took the paper quietly and smiled simply at the acceptance to _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_ and laughed quietly at her doubt. Her dull blonde hair hung in her eyes from the way her mother kept it cropped around her ears, the edges of her thick glasses peaked out from under her bangs where they rested on the bridge of her nose. The glasses made her stone colored eyes appear small and half closed. Her face was small and heart shaped, her cheekbones, like those of her mothers, were high and jutting. She was small but not ill-formed, she was dainty and nimble. She looked very much like her mother in feature, though she had her father's almond shaped eyes. Underneath her shy, quiet exterior she was cunning, but still a child, still easily amused and smiling.

Her brother was almost like looking at the other side of a coin, similar, but very different. His hair was the silvery blond of both parent's, his eyes were wide ovals and silver grey. His face was long and his cheeks, like his fathers, were shallow. He was taller than his sister, in spite of being younger, and moody, his emotions changing faster than you could blink, he was very much him mothers child in that respect. He chattered on about what school would be like with his mother, their whimsical tone echoing off of empty walls and singing through open air. The father glanced at his prattling wife and rolled his eyes as he nudged his coffee cup closer to the girl beside him, she took a sip and returned the cup, exchanging secretive looks with her father. She settled back into her chair and listened happily to her family over breakfast.

**Well there's the prologue, what do you think? I would really enjoy reviews! I offer invisible cookies to those who give feedback!**


	2. It's Only the Begining

**Okay, so before I loose my happy moment I would like to lavish affection on my first reveiwers ****_ever_**** and award them with their cookies in this authors note/header. So will ILuvOdie and Da-meter please come claim there prizes?**

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, never will own Harry Potter and will not be making monies off of this amazing, wonderful, peice of my soul.**

Lucius looked at his wife over his coffee cup, wanting to roll his eyes at the absurd woman but careful not to call her wrath down upon him. "Really, Narcissa, is this necessary? Durmstrang is obviously the better school, and it is useless for my children to learn Defense _Against_ the Dark Arts, it's in their blood to use Dark Magic, they'll come to it eventually." Lucius set his cup down on his left, close to his daughter's place setting as he talked, Narcissa's attention never straying from him. She took a quick sip of the black coffee and replaced the cup before her mother spotted her in the act. Narcissa began to glare at her husband and spoke softly, "I want them closer to _home_ Lucius, not stranded in a country where they don't even know the language!" Her indignation seethed in her words.

"Well, actually…" Lucius trailed off at the look in his wife's eyes, the look that promised he would deplore his words if spoken wrongly. He sighed and resigned himself to ceding him views. "Fine, fine, Narcissa, you win. They will attend Hogwarts as you request, just please stop giving me that look." When Lucius saw Narcissa smiling once more he took a drink of his coffee to hide his annoyance, he was head of this house but he'd been forced to give his wife her way once more. "We'll take the children to Diagon Alley after breakfast once I've sent a reply to those letters," Narcissa said and began to finish her breakfast, eager to begin the day. Narcissa finished first and Lucius tiredly looked after his wife. "How will we survive that woman?" He asked to no one in particular but his daughter gave a small laugh.

"Do you know Kore? Tell me please, because I'm at a loss at how to avoid the ruin of morning people upon us." Lucius poured another cup of coffee and set it between them. It was then that his son chose to speak up. "Father, you know you're not supposed to give her coffee. Mother might skin you alive for it if she sees."

Lucius turned to where his son sat on the other side of his sister and sighed once more and looked to his son with a stern glance. "Let me deal with that when the time comes Draco, besides, soon Kore will be off at school and be able to do as she pleases." Draco thinned his lips but nodded and surrendered his argument, for it was true that she would soon be off to school, but the thought that he too would be going to Hogwarts brightened his thoughts. Soon it was only Lucius and Kore at the table, sharing a cup of coffee and slowly waking up. Soon even they abandoned their seats and went to wait for Narcissa, and when she swished down the elegant front stairs they were all headed to Diagon Alley, school lists in hand.

They were all familiar with the sights and sounds of Diagon Alley, no captivating allure drew them to the closed off street, accept for thoughts of gathering supplies for a school they had heard of all their lives, a school of magic and mystery. They split off into two groups, Draco going with Narcissa to the robe makers while Kore and her father found themselves starting from the other direction at Ollivander's. The shop was dark and musty but Ollivander seemed perfectly at home in the cluttered space. "Mr. Malfoy, a pleasure," Ollivander greeted Kore's father as he walked into the shop first. Kore glanced around the shop she had passed by before, but had not entered until now. "You must be Kore? You look like your mother did at that age, though the glasses are new. I suppose you're here for a wand?" Ollivander spoke quickly as he hopped off the stool behind the tall desk. "Well then, let's see your wand arm." Kore didn't even try to speak as she held out her left arm, Ollivander already mumbling to himself. He measured her arm twice before we went padding off into the depths of the store.

"Is he always like that?" Kore asked as soon as Ollivander was out of sight. Lucius shrugged from where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "I wouldn't know, but yes, he was like this when I came to get my first wand." They waited in silence for a moment then Ollivander was back with an arm load of boxes. He set them on his desk and started with the box on top, "10 inches, willow, dragon's heartstring, springy." It was a dud, just like the rest of the pile. Some of the wands nearly blew up the moment it hit her hand, they were all wands with unicorn hairs and Ollivander took precaution on the next run. Lucius just shrugged elegantly at Kore's questioning glances, it was normal for it to take a while to find your wand, it wasn't just picking one up and deciding it would work for you, wands were finicky things.

Finally Ollivander came back from the fourth run carrying only two boxes. He opened the first and showed a dark wand with a gentle curve in its middle. "12 inches, Pine wood, Demiguise hairs, bendy." Kore lifted the wand and gave it an easy wave; it sparked for a moment and Ollivander's face lit up for a brief second then fell when the lights sputtered and died. He took the wand and placed it back in its case then opened the other box. The wand was the color of sand tinted with honey and perfectly strait. "13 inches, Ivy wood, Basilisk scale and Demiguise hair blend, Rigid." Kore took it and didn't even have to twitch for a cascade of silver-green sparks to flow out the tip. It glowed for a moment then it mellowed. Seven Galleons paid for the wand that went straight back into the box. The rest of the shops passed by quickly, and with an admiring glance she passed by the Quidditch Supply store. Lucius made a turn down Knockturn Alley and Kore stuck close, as interesting as the shops were she didn't exactly care for most of the clientele.

Lucius turned into Borgin and Burkes with Kore on his heels. When they entered the store they stood in the entrance a minute to let their eyes adjust to the light, or lack thereof and Lucius waved Kore off as he went to discuss a pickup of Dark Items Borgin might be interested in. Kore found herself admiring cursed jewels and be-spelled items, taking a glance at a large cabinet. Large rusted spikes sat in a corner and pieces of a human skeleton littered the shelves. Kore had been in the shop a couple times before and remembered not to touch anything, especially the opal necklace on display. As she wanders she finds herself at the back of the shop, further in then she planned on going and staring at tanks of vibrantly colors snakes. Tapping at the glass she caught the attention of the ophidians. They followed the trail her fingers tapped against the glass as she reveled at their swirling gaze.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" A low, scratchy voice rings as the stillness is disturbed. Kore whirled around towards the voice and found a hobbled over man with deep lines etched into his face. His graying hair was wispy and seemed to barely cling to his scalp. His skin looked paper thin and the grimace on his face made him look like quite the fright. "I have them shipped in from everywhere, only the most dangerous and deadly." He motioned back to the snakes. Kore moved aside to give him access to the tanks holding the vipers and he stepped forward to peer at the restless serpents.

"Can I help you…" Kore asked subtly as she scrutinized the aged gentleman. He had a dreadful aura around him that stank of decay and rot. "Just call me Burke." His voice wheezed and his fingers came up to pad across the class like Kore had been before she was distracted. "No one ever comes back here, so no one ever sees them, but I kind of prefer it like that," He gasped as a muddy looking snake snapped at the glass near his fingers. Stepping back he motioned Kore back to her place and whispered over her shoulder. "Only true snakes can tame a serpent. Most purebloods even are unable to find the will.

"I find that most 'snakes' are only vermin trying to be scary." His rasping voice taunted. Kore was transfixed by the coal bright eyes of a swaying steel colored snake. He seemed to dance as she stared, swaying to each side and flowing to an unheard rhythm. "Go on, take him…" Burke scratched out, and Kore could do nothing but follow the snakes dancing eyes. Unaware of her motions Kore reached into the tank and lifted out that tiny snake with dancing eyes that burnt like embers. The snake made to bite but snapped at the air above her wrist and circled it like a bracelet. Kore turned to look at Burke but he had gone as silently as he had come, leaving only his footprints in the dust on the floor.

Kore admired the snake as she wandered back to the front, it had wrapped itself around her wrist and seemed unlikely to let go. Lucius looked down at his daughter when she stepped up beside the counter and smirks down at her. She looks up and smiles in return, lifting her wrist to his gaze. "Where did you get that, Kore?" Lucius struggled, having warned her countless times not to touch anything in the shop. Borgin's eyes thinned and his sickly smile turned into a grimace at the sight. "So Burke's talking again is he?"

"Yes, he told me to take the snake." Kore let one finger run down the snakes back and it moved into the heat. "I thought as much," Borgin said gruffly and he sighed. "Well, I suppose it's yours now, it didn't bite you at least." Lucius finished his business and Kore followed him from the shop, still entranced by the little snake curled tightly around her wrist.

Once Lucius had apparated them home he went to go find Narcissa, giving a small wave to Kore as he hurried up the stairs to the second floor. Kore made her way upstairs at a slower pace thinking about all that had happened in Diagon Alley, deciding to write it down once she got to her rooms, her father having sent their things home ahead of them. Kore nodded as she passed Draco who had just exited his own room a bit further down the hall and slipped through her door to find her journal. Draco continued down the hall aiming to find their father and show him his wand. He heard his parents from just outside the sitting room and crept closer to the door to hear his father and mothers conversation.

A few minutes later Draco gritted his teeth as he stood outside the sitting room door as his father talked about Kore's newest achievement. He could hardly understand what it was about but apparently his sister had once again impressed their fastidious father. She had always been Lucius' favorite and Draco had made it his goal early on to wrest away the favoritism from Kore, but Kore always managed to one up him. She mastered a new trick on her broom, or impressed one of fathers friends, all of Draco's attempts of the same falling short. Draco whirled away from the door to stalk down the hallway.

Internally he ranted about how their father could find no fault in Kore, how she wasn't conniving, cheating at every turn. Draco's eyes narrowed as he passed by Kore's door and he wished that she would just go away. Instead of continuing down the hall to his own room he slammed Kore's door open, feeling a little less angry as it bounced off of the wall with a loud crash. Kore looked up from her book, quill still poised to write, a droplet of ink collecting at its tip. "You think you're so great, don't you?"

Kore blinked at her brother in surprise then opened her mouth to respond. "No, don't bother; I already know you'll deny it." Draco scoffed, not noticing the writhing grey mass beside her hands. "You might be Father's favorite now, but you won't be for long, I'll show him that I can be as good, no… _better_ than you ever have been." Draco stalked forward towards the bed and leaned over, placing one hand on the coverlet, "I can promise you that." The snake hissed as his resting spot was disturbed and tumbled into the indent formed by Draco's weight on the bed. Draco squealed and jumped back, bouncing the snake a few inches into the air as Draco fled from the room.

Kore sighed as she stared after her brother, finding the argument tiring. "That boy," she shook her head. "Sometimes I do wonder." She looked over at her snake as he settled back down beside her. He paused for a moment to look at Kore and seemed to give a sagely nod then went back to tying himself in knots. Kore smiled as she turned back to her page and in the same moment frowned, her quill had dripped ink on the empty space below where she had just written. Annoyed, Kore continued writing around the splatter, it was no use to make a fuss over spilled ink.

**In this chapter I offer smores, please reveiw below to become a recipiant.**


	3. A Place to Belong

**Okay, so I finnished the next chapter earlier than I planned you can have this a early payment for the many times I will miss weeks at a time. Only one reveiwer this time, but as I said, I was early. So here is a smore for LemonDropsWoolSocks, and a big thank you for revewing.**

**Also my 'R' key on my computer has gone missing, it still works but it's the plastic part under the button so it's a bit fritsy sometimes. It is much appreciated if you inform me that an 'R' is missing, thank you!**

Kore was looking forward to residing at Hogwarts; it was a new opportunity to learn magic and use the wand she had been coveting for years. So when she found herself standing on Platform 9 ¾ beside an overly emotional mother and concerned father telling her to write as soon as possible all the while slipping her a sack of galleons to buy food on the train she let it all roll off of her with a casual smile. Draco was as emotional as Narcissa and received a crushing hug from her before they pulled away and she shooed him towards the train. Kore and Narcissa hugged quickly, setting the scene for a loving family goodbye and parted to go their separate ways. Lucius pulled Narcissa into his side and waved Kore off as she stepped into the train, lugging her trunk behind her.

Kore had thought that the platform was busy but upon entering the train she was enveloped by the sounds of shrieking students and loud blasts as spells went off in every other direction. The hubbub was caused by two of the older rookie wizards. They were shooting bottle rockets and cheering as they spelt phrases like 'Slytherin Sucks' in the remaining sparkles. These had to be some of the Weasley brood; their red hair was shocking against the dull brown of the compartment walls. Kore rolled her eyes as she turned the other direction into a hallway with smaller compartments blocked off from each other with walls and sliding doors. There were fewer people here and it didn't take long to find an empty alcove and close the door.

Kore snickered at the sound of an irritated hiss coming from her luggage and popped open the lid. The little grey snake she had named Aldred wrapped around her wrist to form a living bracelet as she rummaged through her trunk for a couple of her textbooks. Pulling out the first books she found she closed her trunk and settled into a seat. A couple times students would try and monopolize the seats around her but Aldred managed to scare them all off. Half way through _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ the train had already set off and a girl with frizzy brown hair and a disgruntled look slid open the door. "Have you seen a toad anywhere around here, a boy named Neville seems to have lost one?"

Kore glanced up at the girl and squinted as if in deep thought. "No, I don't believe so… Maybe one of the Gryffindors the next cart over saw it?" Kore spoke slowly as she turned back to her book. Aldred shifted on the seat beside her, deeply asleep, and hissed quietly. Hermione's eye was drawn to the sound and she took a step back out into the hallway.

"You do realize there's a snake beside you?" She squeaked as she stared at Aldred. Kore didn't even glance up as she flippantly dismissed the question. "Yes, I do believe I saw him there, and if he were awake I believe he would be reminding you that it is rude to stare," Kore said the words with all the graceful easy of a well placed shrug and Hermione noted that she was being off-handedly dismissed.

"O-oh yes, of course. I apologize." Hermione slurred as she quickly shut the door and walked away. Kore nudged the snake away from the edge of the seat and continued reading until the trolley came by. All she ordered was a cup of tea and a pumpkin pasty and she ate her snack while feeding Aldred bites. Kore riffled through her trunk again, remembering a warning from her father to change after the trolley came by; otherwise the restrooms would be far too crowded.

"Make sure no one takes my seat," Kore said as she closed the door behind her. At the sight of her walking through the aisle between private compartments in her robes other first years began scurrying to do the same. Kore wasn't surprised that the other first years were all followers and just rolled her eyes at their simplicity. No one was in her compartment when she returned and Aldred seemed to lie on the bench with all the pride of the cat that caught the canary. Smoothing the skirt of the uniform, she put her things away and waited for the train to reach Hogsmeade.

As she prepared to exit the train Aldred wrapped around her wrist. After a moment of trying to make the snake stay with her trunk she let him remain and threw on her cloak after a look outside. Before exiting she pulled up her hood then stepped off of the train. A massive man with a dark beard was calling for first years and Kore found herself in the middle of the pack of children. They began their walk towards the lake and she let herself, if only for a moment, marvel at the imposing castle. She found herself in a boat with Draco and his ham-fisted cronies. One of the boys in another boat was letting his fingers trail in the water when the massive man warned about the giant squid. He nearly tipped his boat in an effort to get away from the edge.

Kore chuckled quietly as Draco scoffed. She felt Aldred shift on her wrist as a gust of cold air found its way into her sleeve and adjusted her cloak so that it covered her small tag-along. The castle seemingly grew more daunting as they got closer and close up it was so large she was sure that in its prime it truly bustled with activity. A tall, stiff looking woman waited for them at the door. "Professor McGonagall, the first years," The giant said gruffly as he turned them over to the woman.

"Thank you Hagrid, I'll take them from here." She dismissed him as she looked over the gaggle of unsorted children. Inside they went and McGonagall led them to an anti-chamber off of the entrance hall. She explained, for the benefit of the mudbloods who had failed to read their text books, what the Hogwarts houses, house points, and the House Cup were. Kore thinned her lips and thought to herself that, if mudbloods wanted to come to a Magical school they should at least be courteous enough to research before they came.

When the screams startled her from her thoughts she scoffed once more, really, it's a _magic_ castle you should expect at least a handful of ghosts. She had heard from her father about the Slytherin ghost and she spotted him standing silently behind the other ghosts, thin and covered in blood. He could almost have been blind with how blank his eyes were. He saw her staring and Kore nodded before turning away as the ghosts began floating away. In the semblance of a line the first years were led before the staring masses and Kore, only for a moment, wished that the sorting wasn't quite so public. Aldred squeezed her wrist as he wrapped himself tighter and Kore stood up taller, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. A quick glance towards the head table was all she needed to spot her brothers godfather, she gave him a courteous nod when she met his eyes and turned away.

The first years bunched together at the end of the aisle, trying to hide behind each other. Kore stood near the back, escaping the middle of the cluster; she stared expectantly towards the old grungy hat that McGonagall had just set on the stool before them. When it opened at the seam like a gapping mouth and began singing Kore was once again rolling her eyes with distain at the mudbloods fascination.

Kore clapped respectfully at the end and watched as McGonagall unrolled the long parchment. "Abbot, Hannah," she called and the first participant of the sorting stepped forward. Kore amused herself by guessing what house each student would be placed, and was correct more often than not. When her brother was called it wasn't even a question of what house, but there was enough of a pause between setting the hat over his eyes and it shouting out the chosen house that Kore raised a brow. She began towards the front without McGonagall's prompting and the hat barely bushed her head before bellowed, "SLYTHERIN!" The cheering from Slytherin was gratifying, and Kore found her seat across from her brother.

Kore kept up her game, even pegging Potter who had to have a little conversation with the hat before it decided. The cheers from Gryffindor were deafening, echoing off the high ceilings. Kore was holding in her stomach's pleas for food by the time food appeared. She ate swiftly, but once her hunger was assuaged she offered morsels of roast ham to Aldred. Aldred gorged on slivers of ham and Kore made idle conversation with another first year girl who had sat beside her once she was sorted. Dumbledore soon made the announcements and dismissed them; Kore followed the prefects with a lethargic snake and a need for privacy to write in her journal.

**I have elevated my gift to invisible cake, so please reveiw!**


	4. First Time for Everything

**Hello my amazing readers! Just to let you know, I am a very (very, very, very, very… you get the point), extremely lazy person, so I just paired all of the Slytherin classes with those of the Gryffindors. Also, now awarding cake to LemonDropsWoolSocks for the amazing reveiw! I would lov it if more people would like to reveiw and tell me if it's any good or not, I'm super lazy and even I find time for reveiws!**

Kore rolled over in her bed early the next morning as the sounds of giggling penetrated her slumber. She lay in bed a few moments longer, not wanting to admit to herself that yet another morning had begun. Finally she forced herself to sit up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, grimacing at the amount of light in the dorm. The room came into its own focus, distorting figures and shapes to be unrecognizable. Groaning Kore felt around her side table for her glasses and was relieved when the room rearranged itself with the use of the thick glass. Kore hurried to get ready, she needed something to wake her up, and she had classes today.

Most of the other Slytherins stayed in the common room to chat and wait for friends to go down to breakfast, but Kore just wrapped Aldred around her neck like a piece of jewelry and trudged out of the dungeons, strait for the great hall. The clouds from the night before had cleared slightly, turning a dark shade of dove grey. Kore slipped into the last seat on the empty Slytherin bench and poured herself a cup of coffee. She noted that many of the teachers were already there, many looking as tired and impatient as she felt. McGonagall seemed to be perfectly awake and ready to face the day, Kore silently scoffed the natural talent some people had for being mostly coherent in the mornings.

Food appeared before her and she took a slice of buttered toast to nibble on as she woke up. Slowly the other students filtered in and began to fill up the seats around her. Kore drank the dregs of her coffee and poured herself another cup. When the majority of the students had stumbled in the Head of each house began rounds, handing out schedules. Snape swept around the table, handing out times tables and making any needed adjustments. When Snape reached her he wordlessly handed her the first year time table.

Kore nodded her thanks silently and turned back to grab some real food before she had to go. As she ate Draco stood and moved to her side, his eyes gloating as he observed her seclusion. "Not so great here, are you? They love me, but you… well, they don't quite know what to think. Don't worry, I'll tell them all about you," He smirked as he began edging away. Aldred rose from her shoulder and hissed, venom dripping off of tiny, pointed fangs. Draco nearly tripped over himself to get away, scuttling back towards his new group of friends. Kore shook in anger and swiftly followed the prefect rounding up the first years for class, staying on opposite sides of the crowd from her brother.

The transfigurations classroom was devoid of a teacher, but a cat with spectacle markings sat stiffly on the edge of the desk. Most of the students began chatting away and it wasn't until the cat jumped off of the desk and morphed into the stern Professor McGonagall that the other students quieted down and stared in awestruck wonder. Kore watched as she turned her desk into a pig and back into a desk and listened quietly to the first of "many lectures to come," according to one of the older Slytherin students. They receive matchsticks and are told that she expects none of them to actually achieve a full transformation, but that they are expected to try. The students worked quietly, a few cursing under their breath as they tired of the monotony. Aldred was taking a nap in her bag, finding that watching her poke a watch with the tip of her wand was not nearly as interesting as other things he could be doing.

Near the middle of class Kore snuck open her book and looked at a few of the first pages explaining the theory of transfiguration and slid the book away again, waking Aldred in the process. As Kore used the book's tactic of imagining the morph from one form to the next she closed her eyes while she aimed he wand towards the match Aldred slide into her lap. She 'saw' her match turn from brown to silver, then thin to a sharp point, a small opening for the thread slowly appeared and Kore clenched her eyes tight as she willed it to happen. When she felt a sufficient amount of time concentrating had passed she lowered her wand and opened her eyes, and true to form her match had turned into a needle like those her mother used for needle work and small embroidery. She gave a small smirk as she raised her hand to call over the teacher and McGonagall found her way over to Kore.

When she saw the transformed matchstick she thinned her lips and placed another one down. Kore found that now she had done it once it was easy to do again and soon three more matchsticks had been turned to needles. "Well done Ms. Malfoy, five points to Slytherin." It wasn't ten minutes after that that she awarded Hermione Granger ten points for her needle without having her redo the spell. After assigning an essay due the next lesson on the theory of simple transfigurations McGonagall released them to the prefects that came to get them. They are shown to the library and told to "get started on those essays or McGonagall would have their heads."

Kore rolled her eyes at this but when the prefects had gone to their own classes she had gotten to work, managing to get all of her prewriting and drafting done by the time they returned. She dodged sneers from Draco as they returned to the great hall for lunch and managed to sit at the corner away from his growing group of 'friends,' very much looking forward to the escaping Draco all together. When she found herself in the back row of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom she was wrinkling her noses at the overwhelming scent of garlic. Aldred lay immobile after tasting the air making muscle spasms similar to gagging. Quirell turned out to be a stuttering old loon who rambled a lot on the dangers of vampires, but Kore thought that no one acted that suspicious unless they were trying to hide something.

The moment she was free of the class she didn't even wait for the prefects to come, she left the room and headed straight for the library. She finished up the essay for Transfiguration and only left when Madame Pince, the librarian, told her that the library was getting locked up for the night. She found most of the other students asleep when she returned and made her way to bed, sharing her pillow with Aldred.

**Okay people, here is the offering, I bring cupcakes for reviewers! Also, reviewing on previous chapters is a great help too!**


	5. When Potions Go Awry

**I finished another chapter, yay! I would like to award a plate of cupcakes to LemonDropsWoolSocks for being my ****_only reveiwer_**** these past few chapters. Well... I want a cupcake so I'll just eat it as I apease sore fealings with a new chapter!**

Kore rolled out of bed on Friday and found herself suitably annoyed when she could not find her glasses on the stand beside her bed, and her exasperation only increased with every moment she looked for the stupid things. She had never enjoyed them but tolerated their presence because without them she was virtually blind. She squinted as she felt around under the bed for them and when her fingers brushed the cold frames she snatched them up and slid them on, relieved as the world focused around her. The giggling of the other girls in the dorm made her bite her lip to keep in the lists of jinxes she wanted to throw at them. It wasn't like she wanted to wear the blasted things, but it she didn't she would look rather ridiculous as she _felt_ her way down the halls.

She dressed in a hurry and escaped with her satchel, Aldred barely sliding inside before she was rushing up the stairs towards the great hall. She sat silently in her place and fed herself and Aldred as the other students filed in. In the middle of breakfast owls began swooping in through the upper windows, finding their way to each of the recipients of their packages. A large black eagle owl began circling over the Slytherin table, slowing before it made its decent. Both Kore and Draco looked up and spotted it, they expectantly waited for it to land. Draco watched as the owl dropped down elegantly beside his sister, and she untied the package from its leg with the note from their father.

Kore crooned quietly to the owl, offering it bites of her toast as she pet him. Abdias was her father's favorite owl, even tempered and distinct. He easily dwarfed all of the owls that landed around him; his feathers were black like an abyss, his beak shone and was cruelly hooked, large eyes looked about keenly. When he had had his fill of snacking he opened his wide wings and sprang into the air with one great flap of his wings and was gone from the room. Kore caught her brother's twisted face, angry eyes glaring and she turned back to the box and letter from her father. The letter was short, just a reminder to write and the hope that he enjoyed her gift.

When she opened the box she found a set of six ornate phials, diamond like in shape with a spear point stopper. They were faceted in such a way as to keep light from ruining the potions they would hold. Another note from her father inside the box told her that the phials were for her own samples, and that he found it useful to have a draft for comparison on later dates. She smiled at her father's thoughtfulness and packed the box away in her satchel and slipped away from the table when she saw it was about time to get to Potions. Entering the classroom Gryffindors and Slytherins separated themselves, filling opposite sides of the room. Kore took the back corner and let Aldred out of her bag onto the stool beside her; he curled up into a tight coil and closed his eyes, feigning sleep as he held his heat towards his core in the chill of the room.

When they had all settled it began to get awkward as they waited for Snape, small groups of students muttering rumors they heard about the infamous Potions Professor. The time seemed to stretch on and on for the nervous students, though Kore and Draco enjoyed every minute of the others discomfort, having met the snarky man before. When the door to the classroom suddenly opened and a figure wearing churning black robes stepped in the class startled and turned to watch the progression of the tall, lanky haired man stride to the front of the room. No introductions were needed as he took up a rolled parchment and began to read from it, this was the notorious Severus Snape, and everyone had already been warned about the man before. The parchment was a list of the class and Snape called roll, his eyes flicking up at the children seated before him as he spoke. Quite a few Slytherins snickered when he paused at Potter's name, calling attention to the famous new celebrity of Hogwarts. But when he finish the roll the room when silent as he spoke, his eyes cruelly reflecting the light, black, empty and cold.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potions making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, his voice filling the silence as he began speaking. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." Kore smirked at the looks of trepidation on many of the other children's faces, their fear would be their undoing in this class.

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood." The boy was startled and looked to his friend for help but he looked just as thrown off. The girl beside them threw up her hand.

"I don't know, sit," Potter said, his voice was meek and quivered for a moment. Kore watched as Snape's lips curled into a familiar sneer, the same sneer he used when he was sadistically pleased with something.

"Tut, tut - fame clearly isn't everything." He blatantly ignored the eager to please girl with frizzy hair. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar." The girl stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, and Potter squirmed in his own seat.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape met the boys gaze full on while still ignoring the girl with her hand raised. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane." At this, the girl stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling, and even Kore couldn't keep from cracking a grin at how ridiculous she looked.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her." Kore was shocked at his insolence, even Draco looked a bit put off, though Snape was assuredly the most displeased by far.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well. Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment, Kore quickly jotted it all down though she had read her text books a few times before. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter." Snape moved on from the incident quickly and quickly set them all to work on a simple Boil Cure Potion, setting them in pairs, and with an odd number of students Kore found herself thankfully working alone.

Kore, who had been interested in learning magic of any sort from a young age, found it to be remarkably easy, rolling her eyes at her brother's need to show off. If the young Gryffindors had not quite believed Snape's rumored preference for Slytherin's they were slapped in the face with the candid truth as Snape praised Draco's potions skills. While Kore was putting the final touches on her potion a plumb of green smoke rose from a cauldron towards the center of the room, followed by a sizzling hiss. A dark grey liquid slid from the edges of the cauldron and splattered onto the floor. The unsuspecting first years found themselves hopping onto their stools to avoid the mess as it slid over stone and melted through their shoes.

The boy who had been standing directly in front of the boiling cauldron lay on the ground in a heap, covered head to toe with angry red boils. He moaned in pain as Snape sprung forward and cleared the potion with one wave of his wand. He ordered his partner to take him up to the hospital wing all the while turning the blame on Potter. Kore wondered what Draco had against Potter as she bottled a sample of her potion for Snape, applying a label with the potion name, her year and house, and her first initial followed by her last name. She took her father's advice and bottled a sample for herself before heading up front to turn in her potion.

Snape accepted her potion and studied it for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction as he set it aside. Kore quickly returned to her table and began to clean up, remembering the simple spell her father used to clean his cauldron she slid out her wand and whispered "Scourgify." She watched as bubbles foamed for a moment inside the pot the disappeared, taking with it the slimy muck on the sides and bottom of the cauldron. With everything else put away she hefted her pot and placed it back on its shelf. Snape dismissed the class and with a free afternoon she grabbed up her bag and a sleeping snake, oblivious to the havoc of that days class and decided to write her father. She had seen a peaceful looking weeping willow to sit under and soon she was seated beside the lake, listening to the water playfully lap at the bank.

She wrote to her father about her week, her opinions on her new teachers and some of her fellow students, she sent her love and told his she missed him then rolled the letter up and used a precut length of ribbon to seal it. As she moved to pack up her things and gather up her snake there was a splash from the lake and she turned in time to see a long tentacle sliding back below the water, black and inky against the too blue sky, Lucius had told her he had never even glimpsed the giant squid in the lake, and that it hardly ever came near the surface. She decided to keep it to herself, after all, her father didn't need to know everything, did he?

**Okay, you should now the drill by now, reveiw and get fabulous prizes. Right now I'm on a foreign sweets kick so here are triangles of baklava**


	6. High Flying

**Hello, I'm back! sorry this chapter took so long, but school is a pain. The people who reveiwed on last chapter get baklava so here you go LemonDropsWools Socks and chaos! I hope you enjoy this... The quidditch move is mine because I couldn't find and online... sorry if it sucks.**

Thursday after DADA Kore was outside with the first years from both Slytherin and Gryffindor preparing for a flying lesson with Madame Hooch. When she had seen the notice about the lesson with the Gryffindors she had nearly groaned. She had picked up on the hostility between Draco and Potter with ease, their every action around each other made her want them just to fight it out and leave it at that. Rolling her eyes as Draco teased Potter, she just lined up for the class. Kore anticipated an accident the way Longbottom kept rubbing his hands on his pants. The smoke in the rememberall he had been talking to Potter about had been red and Kore suspected it was because he had forgotten a fear of heights, or his clumsiness.

Kore just wanted to be in the air. She had been flying since early childhood and loved the way she could escape everything in the sky. She found it mildly amusing when Draco had to be corrected on how to hold his broom, but as she suspected, before any of them got a chance to even hover a bit Longbottom fell off of his broom and broke an arm. Hooch went to take him to the hospital wing and Draco started antagonizing Potter. In the fuss Kore was able to edge away to the side of the lake and kick off from there. She made lazy figure eights above the lake watching her reflection then moved up higher until the air was no longer calm but choppy and colder than she had anticipated. She made twists and turns in the air, feeling the wind chaff her cheeks and she knew her cheeks were red. She applied a sticking charm to her glasses that kept them on her nose without fear of them slipping then slipped her wand away and began a few more dangerous tricks.

Pulling one foot under her she managed to get a balanced hold on her broom and did a handstand on her broom as she hurtled through the expanse. If she had been closer to the ground she would have heard the fearful gasps from some of her watchers, but as it was with her robes around her head and her pants exposing her calves she couldn't even see the ground. She shimmied towards the front of her broom and it angled downward, her robes blew behind her as she fell towards her mirror self. In the middle she released her broom and they fell in a perfect double helix around each other. She heard the wind screaming past her ears intermixed with the screams of children. She cast a bleary glance towards shore and saw a gathering of figures, but she was moving too fast to see more. Barely feet from the water she reached out and grabbed her broom, just finding her seat as she leveled out to skim across the flat lake. After turning towards the shore she assessed the relieved crowd and saw her brother at its front, fists clenched as he glared accusingly. But it was the dark figure at the back of the crowd that worried her.

Snape stood with his lips pressed thin and his arms folded over his chest, one eyebrow rose as she approached the shore and he stepped around the children to meet with her. When she had landed he waited patiently for her to come to him. "When you're finished receiving your admiring looks from your fellow students I would advise that you follow me, my wrath is not something you would wish to bare." He turned and with a ripple of his robes began walking back towards the castle. Kore tossed the broom she held at a timid looking Slytherin boy and followed after Snape. When they reached the castle they did not go towards the dungeons, but upward. They come to a halt outside the DADA room and Snape opens the door.

"Sorry to interrupt Quirell, but I need Flint." Quirell's eyes shot between Snape and a nasty looking boy in the front row. "O-of course, S-severus. R-read pages t-t-twenty th-three th-through f-forty s-six, Mr. Flint. Y-you m-may go." Quirell stuttered and shook as he spoke, Kore resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and how anyone could have put up with that for more than a few years without going crazy eluded her. She seriously hoped he got sacked or she might have to hurt him.

Flint and Kore exchanged nods in the place of wordy greetings, in Snape's presence the fewer words you used the better, so it seemed. It was only when they were in Snape's office surrounded by the strange contents of jars and phials that they spoke, or that Snape spoke in any case. "For the past six years we have won both the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup. Unfortunately we lost one of our best chasers, Victor Wilhelm, last year and Flint has yet to find anyone up to par." Snape began, sliding down just a bit in his chair and supporting his head on his fist. "I saw you flying, Ms. Malfoy, and I think you have potential. Flint here is our quidditch captain this year, and needs to fill the team's empty spot with someone who can step into Victor's shoes. How would you like to try out for the team?" Kore sat shocked for a moment and let her mind work through the offer, and amaze at getting off without any sort of punishment. As if reading her mind her Snape continued, "Or you could get a few detentions, flying without the instructor there to supervise is dangerous you know?"

"No, I'll try out Professor; just give me a day and a time."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I'll get permission from the Headmaster to get your own broom shipped in; the school brooms aren't worth a cent anymore. Now I assume you both have work to attend to?" Snape dismissed them with that and Flint and Kore made their way to the common room.

"The name's Marcus Flint. I hope you're as good as Snape thinks you are, no one can play worth shit in Slytherin, at least, those who aren't already on the team. What did you do to impress him like that anyway? For him this is a huge complement." Flint held out his hand and Kore shook it as they walked.

"I gathered that. I'm Kore Malfoy. Snape caught me executing Schulster's Double Helix. I didn't think anyone would see me while Potter was in the sky." Kore shrugged as Flint gave the password 'Salazar' to open the door to the common room.

"You can do a double helix? No wonder he was impressed, those are bloody hard and bloody dangerous to try, even I've never managed," He gave his subtle accolades as they parted ways in the common room. "I'll let you know when tryouts are." He walked over to a couple of his buddies. Kore took off as well, this was a journal worthy moment.

**Reveiwers get banana bread so please reveiw!**


	7. Just Something To Do

**Sorry, I know it's a bad chapter, and I know you might want to kill me but I needed a filler chapter. Also, banana bread goes to LemonDropsWoolSocks and chaos!**

Kore was up early that Saturday for Quidditch tryouts, and hoping to avoid Draco in the common room. When her broom had arrived in a box under the influence of an undetectable extension charm he had been furious at her. With the ban on first years having their own brooms at school Lucius had sent it to Flint who in turn passed it on to Kore. All she had done was pulled out the sleek handle of the Nimbus 2000 and Draco had gone into another of his fits, but Kore just wanted to avoid him and get a chance to fly.

It was a wonder that there were as many people tying out as there were at six o'clock on a Saturday morning, and all but her were boys. Most pure-blood families raised their children to believe girls were weaker, and the boys on the team already made it their goal to get her kicked out first thing. Kore was used to the funny looks, her father had raised her as he would have raised a first born son and people disapproved of that. Flint stood at the front was getting everyone arranged for laps around the pitch.

The goal was to weed out the slow flyers so in groups of ten they flew circles around the edge of the pitch, dodging kicks and hits to force someone to drop back. Kore found in her group that it wasn't stopped quite so easily and kept herself flying just ahead of the group to stay out of reach. Half the recruits were cut as they began to lag behind, Kore's entire group leaving with them, and again Kore was placed into a group that shoved, and kicked and tried to fly into her. Kore just flew the drills and one by one her tormentors were cut from the tryouts. When the surviving beaters from the tryouts and from the team and handed their bats Flint announce Bludger Dodging.

Kore knew that this drill wasn't actually training, and from the way the old team cleared the field laughing they knew it too. But soon she was dodging bludgers left and right. If she suspected that they were primarily trying to hit her down she didn't complain, just focused on out flying their attacks. When one bludger took a liking to her broom end she rose into the air and it followed, shooting past her as she leveled out and began diving towards the ground. Flint signaled the beaters to stop as she looked behind her to see the bludger catching up. Just as it was about to ram the end of her broom she pushed it away and dove towards the ground parallel her broom.

The team gasped as the ground began to get almost too close for comfort when the bludger pushed itself too fast and drove itself into the ground. Kore snagged her broom and angled up just before she would have hit the ground and rocketed up. The team just stared as she landed, beaters gone to round up the last bludger. "Well, did I pass?" Kore asked sarcastically as the other recruits touched down.

"That was a Double Helix! How in hell did you do that?" One of the fifth years boys accused her as they stepped up. Kore only looked at him for a moment then rolled her eyes.

"Listen, this is just something to do, if you want me to leave say so," she snapped. It wasn't like she was trying to make friends, but she thought it might be nice to have a group to associate with who would at least not mind her presence, she refused to admit she _needed_ anyone. The boy grimaced, but said nothing more. Flint got rid of the other people who tried out and he was the first to welcome her to the team, he gave her a copy of their practice schedule and the other members nodded as they went their separate ways. Kore walked slowly as she thought of how to tell her father she had made chaser for the Slytherin House Quidditch Team, he would be ecstatic. In the common room she see's Draco headed her way with a look on his face that _screamed_ rage and went the long way to the dorm to avoid his fit, maybe she'd send the letter tomorrow.

In Transfigurations the following Monday Kore silently fumed to herself. Her glasses had gone missing that morning and taunts from the other girls let her know that it was not accidental. It was only when she had pegged one with her wand that they had, grudgingly, given back her glasses. The stupid things were such a hassle but when they had tried to fix her eyes as a child it had done absolutely nothing. Kore growled to herself and fingered the rim of one oblong piece of glass, wishing they would disappear. Kore began to think about searching the library for eye spells and after classes got out went directly there, thankful that the Quidditch team only practiced every other Monday.

Madame Pince was wary of giving her the names of all the books related to eye magic and gave her the list with a suspicious look, trying to assess if she was going to demolish the books on the page. Kore rolled her eyes and began collecting the books and when she had more than she could carry, she settled herself beside one of the arched windows to read. It took the remainder of the evening to realize that if she was going to find a spell to help her she would need books with higher levels of magic. Kore thought about going to Professor Snape for a pass, but he would want to know what she was doing, and if she should come up with nothing she did not want anyone knowing that she had tried. Kore decided that an older Slytherin might know what to do and jogged down to the common room to talk with Marcus Flint.

She found Flint snogging a fifth year in front of the fire and she internally gagged for the girl, he looked like he was trying to eat her face off. Kore cleared her throat several times before Marcus looked up, wiping his lips on his sleeve. When he spotted the small, dirty blonde first year he waved the girl under his arm away. "What can I do for you Malfoy?" Kore took a seat on the far end of the couch at a polite speaking distance; she crossed her legs at the knee and turned to face him.

"I need a forger." Kore got strait to the point and watched Flint's eyebrows raise.

"What would a first year need a forger for?" He laughed as he leaned back into the couch, arm still wrapped along the back. "And why do you think I know one? I'm not the sort to go sneaking around where I shouldn't be."

Kore shook her head and sighed, Slytherins were a difficult lot, for sure. "Flint, you're a Slytherin, even if you don't need a forger you make it your business to know who all of them are, blackmail and that sort of thing, right? As for why I need one, if it works out... you'll know." Flint's smirk gave off a distinctly malicious joy.

"Well you're a Slytherin, that's for sure." He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll arrange a meeting and give you the time and place later." Kore nodded and stood, she thanked him for his help and found her way into her dorm to finish up the homework she had neglected in the library.

**Okay then, please review! To the reviewer goes the dark chocolate, macadamia nut sugar cookies! Yum!**


	8. Restricted Research

**Oh. My. Gosh. I was **_**not**_** planning on being gone so long! I will beg at all of my amazing readers feet to forgive my absence, I am an awful excuse of a human being! If anyone feel's it necessary to berate me/ask why I was gone you can push the pretty blue review button all the way at the bottom of the page, or message me on my profile! And thank you to the most amazing LemonDropsWoolSocks and laola for their reviews! you guys rock, please accept my dark chocolate, macadamia nut sugar cookies, a batch made for LemonDropsWoolSocks without the dark chocolate!**

Kore wiped her brow as she dismounted her broom after Quidditch practice in late September. It was still fairly warm and after the long practice Kore wanted to go read. After exiting her changing room in the base of the Quidditch Pitch she walked after the rest of the team to put away her broom, her hair was still damp with sweat and she decided that she would need a shower once inside the castle. After storing her broom and wrinkling her nose at the stench of thirteen boys, six other starting players and seven backups, she turned to walk back to her dorm.

"Hey Malfoy, do you mind staying behind a minute? I want to go over strategy for our first game, we only have a month to drill you in maneuvers," Flint called as she was leaving and she turned back to face him.

"Sure, I don't want to disappoint on my first year on the team," Kore hung back as the rest of the team finally broke away. Once she was sure they were all gone she turned back to Flint. "Now what's this really about? You know I don't need the extra practice, and besides, I can see the Hufflepuffs about to take the field." Flint snorted as he turned to see a Hufflepuff scurry back towards the Pitch to tell the team the Slytherins were gone.

"They aren't cut out for Quidditch; I swear they practically _give_ us the win every year. But you are correct, this isn't about Quidditch, it's about that conversation we had last week in the common room."

"Oh, I thought you'd forgotten, it took longer than I thought it would," Kore raised a brow and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, outlining the frame of one glass oval as she lowered her hand.

"We had scheduling issues, he found an open slot after Quidditch practice and before lunch, so I managed to get him to squeeze us in." Flint started walking towards the lake directly at the weeping willow Kore had sat under a few times before to do her homework. The walk was short and it didn't take long to slip between the fronds of green. Under the willow sat a severe looking boy with black hair cropped close to his head and a pointed face. His eyes were seated close together and shown cerulean blue in the dim light. His nose was sharp and his lips were a thin line between shallow cheeks. He looked frail as he hunched over a book bound in old leather and titled in gold leafing. His robes told Kore that he was a Ravenclaw as she spied the sapphire interior.

"Marsilius Eldritch meet Kore Malfoy, she's the one I told you asked for your… expertise," Flint drawled as he waved them towards each other. The two silently shook hands as they sized each other up, it was the unspoken rule to know exactly who you were dealing with in cases like these.

"You didn't tell me she was a first year," Marsilius stated and glanced at Flint. "You can go now; my business is with her, not you." Flint's eyes widened at the dismissal then he turned and strode towards the castle, leaving the leaves of the tree trailing his departure before closing around the remaining two to give them their privacy. "Now, Kore Malfoy, what do you need that I could help you with?"

"Depends on how much it costs me," Kore murmured and once again readjusted her glasses.

"First time is always free, brings back repeat business."

"Then I need a pass to the restricted section of the library from one of my teachers, the subject I'm dealing in can be classified as Transfigurations or Charms, it deals in changing the properties of an object, while leaving it as itself, but it's not a substance change." Marsilius nodded then began adding his own thoughts.

"McGonagall dislikes most Slytherins so the pass will have to be from Flitwick. I need to know what you're working with; otherwise Pince won't let you take the book out of the library; should I label it as an extra credit project dealing in advanced magic?"

"Yes, and I'm dealing in the permanent improvement in eyesight." As she spoke he took out a quill and began writing in a rounded, airy cursive with a flamboyant signature that could only be Flitwick's. There were no re-dos and with a wave of his wand he finished the note.

"Here, Pince will let you through with this, be sure not to lose it, I'm charging you next time," He slowly stood as he handed her the paper. He was taller than Flint by half a foot, but slender like one of the fronds from the willow above them compared to Flint's strong build. "I hope to see you soon."

Kore thought he sounded vaguely like a depressed store clerk as he walked away and she held the note by the edges to look at the loopy scrawl, "I'm sure you will." Kore walked after him, she'd go to the library after her shower, she felt like she'd gone long enough without one. When she reached the common room it was deserted and the timepiece in her pocket told her it was lunchtime, none of the students would be back for a while. When she got to her room Aldred lay belly up on the bed sleeping. Kore laughed as he flipped over a little too fast when the door closed and fell off the bed.

She set the note on her side table and went for a shower in the dorm's bathroom and returned drying her hair, glasses hooked in her trouser pocket. She heard a hiss and a shriek and tossed down her towel as she scurried into her room. The blur she saw made no sense until she threw on her glasses and saw Aldred poised to strike at Pansy Parkinson who held the note Kore had tossed on her side table.

"Aldred, knock it off!" Kore said as she passed the dizzy girl, snatching the note away as she went to calm her snake. Kore muttered soothing sounds as she set Aldred in her lap and turned towards Pansy.

"That snake is a menace! I-I'll report him to Snape!" Pansy screeched as she stormed from the room. Kore rolled her eyes and settled Aldred around her wrist, stuffing the note in her pocket. She stood and walked out of the dorm with Aldred and past the onlookers to Pansy's terrified run from the Slytherin common room calling for Snape. Kore found that most of the Slytherin were in the common room, which meant that lunch was over. Kore sighed as she walked out of the room and through the passage that led to the Hufflepuffs part of the dungeon; she heard a rumor amongst the other first year Slytherins that they knew where the entrance to the Kitchens were.

Kore found it easy to get directions from a mousy third year and was instructed to tickle the pear on the portrait of the bowl of fruit. Once Kore had rolled her eyes at the frilly instructions to the kitchens she followed them till she stood before a bowl of giant fruit, her fingers gently brushing the pear. Inside she was seated by a house-elf who took her order and pattered off to get her food. When he arrived back with a tuna salad and a small plate of sausage links he bowed before walking away, his floppy ears falling in his eyes. It was silent other than the sounds of house-elves cleaning and chatting, both sounds Kore knew well from eating lunch in her kitchen at home to avoid her mother's glares. Half way through her meal a demanding mewl accompanying a bat to her legs by a whipping tail.

Kore glanced down and was shocked to find Mrs. Norris circling her feet. She stopped, sniffing the air for a moment, then returned to her demands. Kore glanced at her salad, taking a wild guess as she lifted off a bit of tuna and held it out for the cat. Mrs. Norris sniffed her fingers then took the offered bite, licking traces off Kore's fingertips. It kept on like that for a while, Kore would take a bite and offer a bite to the cat who would purr a bit then take the food, Aldred hid on the table, peaking down when the cat purred then went back to eating his sausages. The cat rubbed against her once, circling her feet before she took off out of the kitchens.

Kore made her way up to the library after her meal and slipped up to the desk where the sour looking Madame Pince sat staring with beady vulture eyes at the students reading around her. When the librarian turned her malicious gaze on Kore there was a moment of silence between them as Kore handed her the forged note. Kore held her breath as Madame Pince inspected the note; the librarian gave an annoyed sigh as she set the note aside and roused from her desk. Kore swore she heard her muttering about Flitwick being too lenient with his students as she showed her to the Restricted Section.

Kore waited until she had walked away to start on her research, then she began to inspect the rows of dusty tomes. A few of the books she picked up shrieked as she opened them while, thankfully, others sat silently in her hands. It was only hours later that Kore left the restricted area of the library with three books that were the most likely to help her in her study. Her black trousers were streaked with dust and grim and her white shirt was in disarray as she checked out the books from Madame Pince, swearing to keep them in the same condition she got them.

Kore held the volumes close to her chest as she made her way to the Slytherin common room, keeping them next to her like closely beloved and important. On her way there Aldred roused in her pocket and she could feel his twisting and turning as she moved, but finally he settled and slumped back to sleep. It was as she approached the common room that she saw a large figure draped in black robes step from her head of house's office.

Snape had been getting quite a few complaints about Kore, she's murderous, cold, plotting their deaths, and with such whiney voices around her he could understand why. This latest complain though had meant that he had to speak to her about the accusation; Pansy Parkinson swore that Kore ordered her snake to poison her. She had not been in the common room or the dormitories earlier that day and so he was returning now just before dinner time to see if she had returned. His cloaks billowed behind him as he turned towards the common room, catching sight of a small silhouette walking the same way carrying several large books.

He turned towards the shape and silently relieved over not having to go to the rowdy common room to fetch her. "Ms. Malfoy, I would like to see you in my office… now," He spoke with an imperial tone and narrowed her eyes as she adjusted her book, the gold wording of the spines glowing illegibly in the half-light.

"Of course Professor Snape," Kore said as he opened the office door for her to pass. She found herself seated in the only available chair on her side of the large Mahogany desk, the tomes sat in her lap and Aldred once more adjusted himself in her pocket.

"Now, Ms. Malfoy, I've been receiving complaints about you." Snape sat across from her, elbows resting on the edge of the desk. His fingers weaved together and he leaned forward to peer over them. "Now, some students believe that you are plotting to kill them, one particular threat seems to be by snake venom, is this correct?"

Kore pondered her options and found lying, at least fully, would not be to her advantage. So giving it a little thought she began to speak. "Professor Snape, I in no way threatened their lives, but that isn't to say they were not threatened." Snape raised a brow and waited. "Many times when I have gone out of the room there have been… incidents that other girls try to pilfer items that belong to me. I have merely taken precautions that it does not happen."

"And what of the snake they have claimed to see with you?"

"Oh, they aren't hallucinating, but he would never attack anyone," She said, moving the books from her lap to the desk and standing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the lethargic coil that was Aldred. "He's a threatening little thing, but he's not going to bite them. And if he did it would be their fault." Snape studied her for a moment then watched Aldred as he curled around Kore's wrist.

"Just keep him under control." Snape gestured to the door, and it swung open for her to leave. Kore didn't say anything more and gathered her books before she left the room, leaving Snape to rub his hands over his face in irritation as the door clicked shut. Those Malfoys, always bending the rules around them, if anyone thought his godson was bad they didn't know his older sister. And the worst part was that she did it in a way that made others overlook her, she stayed off the grid as much as possible. '_These Malfoys will be the death of me,'_ he thought as he stood and walked out of his office, locking it behind him as he headed up to dinner.

**German Chocolate Cake for all that reveiw!**


	9. Halloween Horrors

**I am posting early as an apology for my readers and also as a way to say that I'll be going camping so I won't have a computer to work on. I might be late with this next chapter as well, and I am a bad person, I know, but I've been planning this for a while so I'm sorry again.**

**Also, I messed up on this part of the time line and I apologize, but I don't want to rewrite this chapter cause it works sooo well. I know Halloween was a Thursday but I messed it up in planning… really bad... so for the sake of my story can we just say Halloween was Friday? I love you all! Thanks! **

**And German Chocolate Cake goes to Iaola and LemonDropsWoolSocks for reveiwing so quickly!**

The end of October slowly rolled around and before Kore knew it was Halloween was upon them. She didn't know where the time had gone; she had learned so much but the time had passed by in an instant. So when she rolled out of bed early, and managed to find her glasses with few incidents, only stubbing her toe when she stood and stepped into her night stand she was bewildered to find several parcels wrapped in silver paper, each tied with a green silk ribbon. The gifts were simple enough, a scarf made of a weave of soft, worked wool in Slytherin colors. A heating charm had been woven in while the strands had been died, then weaved together. A pair of slippers like the ones she had been wearing in the common room and dorm, but these had also been laced with a heating charm, and were again, very soft and comfortable. Kore was thankful that her father had not thrown away too much money on another unused ring, necklace or frippery that would only serve as dead weight in her trunk.

Aldred had sluggishly wound his way out of the blankets as she had opened the presents and lay on her pillow with what, to Kore, looked like a quiet agonized glare that told her he was miffed that she had removed her warmth from the bed. Kore smiled softly at the serpent as she stood to get ready for class, "Do you think I should have stayed in bed longer? Well, no use pouting about it now, it's time to go... before anyone else wakes up." Kore hurried out, making sure to avoid the other waking first years.

When Kore sat at the table food appeared before her, and she fed Aldred while reading _'Charms of Sight and Strength,'_ one of the books she had obtained in the restricted section of the library. She thought it was rubbish. Not that the spells didn't work but most were for blinding and clearing hazed vision, nothing that would work, though the history of each spell was interesting. The strength spells were of no use either, nothing that would help her at all as she struggled to find a way to improve her own eyes. It was only as the other students began to file out that she looked up from the books aged pages. Barely sweeping Aldred off the table before she started walking away, bag over one shoulder and book firm in hand, she slipped through the crowd and down into the dungeons. On the way to class her brother passed by, bumping his shoulder with hers and growling out, "Happy Birthday, I hope your potion blows up."

The chill was immediate and Kore pulled her robes a bit tighter as she slipped into the class with the other first years and sat at the back again. Aldred bored quickly and slithered away across the cold stone floor among the tramping feet of the other first years. The board was blank as they settled but when Snape walked into the room he posted a recipe for a Pepper Up Potion. He made a round about the room as the first years scattered into movement to fetch supplies, comeing to stand beside the still sitting Kore.

"Happy Birthday, Ms. Malfoy," He muttered as he stood there and Kore looked up.

"Thank you sir," Was all Kore said to acknowledge the daunting professor, but it was enough and he walked away to berate Potter.

It was a simple, if volatile recipe that would ruin if stirred too quickly. Kore also took out her book and set it to the page with the recipe so she did not need to constantly glance at the board. She waited till the line died down at the cupboard before heading up to grab her own supplies.

As she gathered her last ingredients she noticed that the jar that had contained dried leaves of lady's mantle was empty. It was a vital part of the potion and Kore's lips thinned slightly as she walked back to her table, catching sight of her brother sending her a smirk as he held up a few leaves of lady's mantle, to many for just his own potion. Apparently he had meant his birthday greeting. It only took her a moment to pull out _'1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi,'_ she refused to appear to be incompetent in a subject she enjoyed. She found the page on lady's mantle and it had some suggestions on substitutes for the plant. The only thing she knew was readily available was alocasia fruit, and it had a larger kick than the lady's mantle. Kore decided that the improvising would have to work and grabbed a palm full of fresh blueberries when she went back for her last supplies, to counter act the intensity of the fruit.

When she reached the point where she began to deviate, after adding the bicorn horn, she set out a sheet of paper so she could take notes and still have a legible book if she made a mistake. Using her mortar and pestle she mashed three alocasia fruit to an orangey mash. She knew this was the moment of truth, and that if it didn't work it might literally blow up in her face. With a steady hand she slid the mixture into the bubbling cauldron. She watched at the potion turned vaguely the color of pea soup, it was a bit too bright for the stage but it had worked, and she smiled, pleased with herself, and hoped the blueberries would dim it a bit. Kore rinsed off her mortar and pestle then took the blueberries and repeated the process as she had with the alocasia fruit and slid the mush into the watery, pea soup concoction.

As she had hoped, the bright green dulled down, gaining a murky color as she gently stirred the mixture. She remained cautious as she completed the potion, and though it was a shade off color it didn't seem to have made a big change. She took care to bottle the potion, one for Snape and one for herself then began to clear her station. It was then that a small squeal echoed through the room and the sound of a cauldron melting with a sizzle whispered through. She saw Aldred slithering away just ahead of the tide of ruined potion. Neville had narrowly avoided being splashed in the face with the volatile sludge as he blubbered about a snake.

Snape glanced over at Kore before cleaning up the potion. "Longbottom, get out of my class, I need no more catastrophes today," he sneered as he spoke and waved Neville away. The boy nearly ran out of the class room, leaving his things beside his stool. The boy he had worked with grabbed it on the way out, most people taking the distraction as a reason not to finish their potions. Kore finished cleaning and turned her potion in to Snape before she gathered her things and walked out, headed for the library.

Snape picked up Kore's potion and swirled it in the crystal, noting its coloring as he began to mark completeness. Her brother had placed his potion beside hers and though there was only the barest of differences hers was lighter, greener than her brothers. The scent was different as well, almost sweet and the taste was fruity. Snape furrowed his brow and set it aside, he would take it up with her later, after the Halloween feast.

Kore settled into the window seat of one of the big bay windows, letting the warm sunlight that was dimming each day fall over the golden pages of her book. She had always enjoyed reading in natural light, it was warm, and thought the outside air was chilly, where she sat in the library was pleasant. She poured over a text from the restricted section making mental notes on which pages looked promising. She barely dragged herself out of the pages to glance at the time, her stomach complaining as she saw it was far past lunch. So far in fact that she could not go for lunch in the kitchens; not quite that close to dinner at least.

"Well Aldred, should we head down?" Kore muttered to the snake that slept curled around her throat like a necklace. He readjusted himself closer into the heat of her skin as she gathered her things and swiftly made her way down to dinner.

Halloween warranted a feast for the castle, it was a time for fun and Dumbledore was very adamant that they all enjoy themselves. Kore smiled at her brother when he cast an envious glare her way as he took in the great jack-o-lanterns that hung above the tables, and the cheerful nature of the room. Her birthday was a joyful time for the castle, even if they had no clue they were celebrating it. She remembered his choked off 'Happy Birthday' that morning and shook her head at him, he wanted nothing to do with her but they were still family, much to their irritation.

Kore had noticed that the purple turbaned teacher was missing from the table at the front of the room. She didn't think much of it as she ate, the lethargic Aldred sleeping peacefully around her neck, until the doors to the great hall burst open and in can a panting, trembling Professor Quirell. "Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know." He trembled then fell to the ground in a dead faint. The entire great hall burst into sound, starting as mutterings then escalating to panic. Dumbledore set off a couple firecrackers from his wand to get their attention.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!" The prefects sprung into action and began to round up their houses, hurrying their students from the great hall to their house common rooms. The Slytherins took the longer and more complicated way of getting to the common room that consisted of the smallest passages and walkways, and when they reached the common room they hurried inside by year groups, first years, then second year, then third years and so on until everyone was in. From there a head count was taken and when they were sure that everyone was there they relaxed.

When a long table appeared at the other side of the room, steaming piles of food on the platters everyone slowly made their way over and began to serve themselves, but Kore had lost her appetite, and she head up to the dorm to wait for Snape to come and tell them the troll was gone. It wasn't much longer that she had to wait, but by then everyone had finished eating and the platters had disappeared. Kore had made her way back out of the dorm moments earlier to see if Snape had returned and was relieved to see him walking in the entryway to the common room.

"The troll has been detained and is being removed from the castle now," He growled and the students around the room relaxed. He turned to leave the room and before the stone slab closed she saw him _limping_ towards his office, and in the back of her mind she saw it as the perfect opportunity to ask him about her potion. The prefects told everyone to get some sleep and head off to bed themselves, expecting the rest to follow by example. The room cleared out as the time became later, but Kore had an inkling Snape would not be asleep for hours and so she waited until the other students had made their way to bed before she snuck from the room and slipped through the dark hallways to the office of the potions master.

It was dark and chilly in the cave-like corridors of the dungeon and Kore cast Lumos to find her was. There was the feint drip of water coming from a dark corner, the sound echoed in the silence that felt like the castle held its breath, waiting for something, anything, to happen. When the thick door of Professor Snape's office came into view Kore unlit he wand, but kept it at her side as she rapped quietly at the door. The silence intensified to Kore, and stretched on longer than it truly did, but even if she knew so, that didn't make it feel any shorter.

"Enter," Came the low sound of Snape's voice and the castle released its hold on the silence, the corridor was no longer a cave, the night would not swallow her up. Kore pushed open the door and let it click shut behind her as she stepped towards Snape's desk. "Ms. Malfoy, it is after curfew, what are you hoping to accomplish so late in the evening?" Snape droned as his eyebrow quirking upward while she stood unabashed before him. His sneer was less prominent than before as he leaned back into his chair and crossed his arm to look down his nose at the small girl.

"Sir, I noticed that you were limping on the way out of the common room, I wish to inquire on your health…" Kore began, trying to work her way towards her main reason for the visit. Snape stared for a moment then sat back up in his seat.

"I am well, Ms. Malfoy, now you will head off to bed before Mr. Filch makes his dungeon route." Snape waked her towards the door but Kore remained where she stood.

"Sir, I would also like to inquire upon the potion I made today, I did not feel it was up to standard due to… unforeseeable events."

Snape watched as she laced her fingers together in front of her before she started fidgeting. He had forgotten that he was going to take the matter to her after the feast. He let her worry for a moment longer then smirked as he stared her down. "Yes, I had meant to come to you on the matter Ms. Malfoy. It would seem that you deviated from the directions upon the board, can you explain the reasoning behind this?" Kore stood a bit straighter and spoke with a voice that made him sure butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

"There was no lady's mantle, sir. I was forced to improvise." Kore was about to start shuffling her feet when she met Snape's eyes. He looked mildly amused and seemed to be laughing at her expense. Kore stood still, feeling miffed that she was so amusing, but the knowledge that he wasn't going to bite her head off helped.

Snape had recognized the new ingredients in the potion before the feast, alocasia fruit and blueberries. He was curious as to why she added the blueberries, as it wasn't common knowledge that the fruit canceled out the strength of the alocasia. "How did you come up with adding blueberries with the alocasia fruit? Not even many seventh years know that tip." Snape watched as her eyes lit up a bit at the muddy complement.

"I made it a goal to memorize _'1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi,'_ sir. I haven't completely got it down, but the knowledge seems to be serving me well so far," Kore smiled a bit before a yawn that she had been holding in broke out.

"Well in any event Ms. Malfoy, you should be getting off to bed, Mr. Filch will be making rounds soon." Kore didn't argue and she slipped out into the corridor and began back towards the common room. As she walked through the dark halls she heard heavy footsteps and low grumbling of Filch. With a curse she slipped into an alcove, even knowing that she would be caught by Mrs. Norris. As the footsteps walked by Kore felt a small body rub across her legs. Looking down she saw the glowing eyes of a cat then they were gone as the cat followed Filch. Kore waited until she was sure Filch was gone before sliding back into the hall and carefully continuing on her was. Kore decided that she should have lunch in the kitchens more often over the weekends, thinking back on the past visits that had led to the cat not alerting Filch to her presence, it would certainly benefit her later.

**I apologize if it seems dry... but Pound Cake goes to the reveiwers!**


	10. Mirror Mirror

**I missed you all so much! Especially you, LemonDropsWoolSocks! Here is your pound cake, very sorry it's late! For six weeks I have been trapped in the deepest pit of hell known as 'lack of a computer.' I could not write the next chapter and so it was painful to come back and face all of my disappointed readers, please forgive me, I swear I will post more! So here goes the next chapter, hope you all like/love/adore it. Lol!**

In the weeks after Halloween not much had occurred. Kore had heard the story of Potter's greatness in saving the mudblood Granger girl from a troll. Not much out-of-class work had been assigned as students began to become impatient with the holiday to come. Her father had already written them that he would not be able to be home over the Christmas break due to ministry affairs with the Bulgarian Ministry of Magic. He had told her before that Hogwarts at Christmas was something she should see at least once in her schooling years and so she had opted to stay at the school this year. She was not very excited over the season and so while other Slytherins swapped stories of past Christmas Eves and plans for the break she escaped the common room to wander the castle and familiarize herself with the complicated passage ways and corridors.

It was on one such occasion that she came across a gilt mirror. She had nearly passed it by the first time, but a glint off the edging through a crack between the door to a room and the trim had caused her to turn her lit wand tip to see the cause of her distraction. She hadn't meant to stay there, or to visit again, but the image in the mirror had haunted her. She would be out wandering the castle only to find her taking the familiar twists and turns to the mirror. Kore would sit, contemplating the image for hours at a time, for it was an image she had long wished for, but it was also a cruel joke.

In the mirror stood her family and herself, standing together as they had in many family portraits, but where she had always before stood before her father, her brother being choked by her mother's hugs beside… it was now _her_ enveloped in her mother's arms, smiling joyfully at the painter. Draco stood stiffly before their father as Lucius and he bore identical smirks, their father's hand resting firmly on Draco's shoulder instead of Kore's own. She was resentful of the image even as she longed for it, for her mother to love her and her father to fulyl approve of her brother. In fact, she was so entranced that, only days before her brother and the other students of Hogwarts left for their homes she sat before the mirror once more, and had been there for many hours. Curfew had long since passed and she had neither noticed its approach nor its retreat. The teachers had begun to make their rounds and only by pure luck was it Snape that found her seated before the mirror.

Snape was lurking in the hallways, hoping to catch a Gryffindor out of bed; more specifically he was looking for Harry Potter to slip out like his father always had. He stalked the halls and corridors, skulked in the shadows and prowled the night, his easy stride silent in the echoing caverns. So when he came across a door, cracked open enough to see the light of a wand he thought he had finally caught a student of strict Professor McGonagall besmirching her trust in them. It was a great surprise to him to find, not a Gryffindor, but a Slytherin, hell, a Malfoy in the room when he deftly swung the door open without a sound. His glide turned stiff and his heals clipped the floor as he approached and only briefly leaned down to snag Kore's arm and dragged her to her feet.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" His normally smooth voice growled, his hand on her elbow was firm to a point boarding pain and his eyes shone with smoldering anger. Kore was startled enough that for a moment her mind had gone silent and she was unable to do more than slowly turn from the mirror. Snape's lips were firmly pressed and his jaw was flexed as he awaited her reply. It took a moment, but she was finally able to force out the cause of her enthrallment.

"Th-the mirror," Kore gasped as she felt her heart begin to slow from the startled pace it had set. She managed to stand on her own accord and watched as Snape gave a glance at the mirror then snapped his gaze back to hers as he released her arm. His temper cooled only slightly, but his voice was not laced with its prior venom as he straitened to his full height.

"The Mirror of Erised," Snape rumbled, his voice regaining its satin smooth finnish. "It shows the true desire of the viewer. It has driven more resilient viewers mad with want." Kore glanced at the mirror then quickly glanced away.

"So it shows you what you want, not what comes to be?" It was a rhetorical question and Snape made not a sound to answer it. Her gaze fell a moment as she acknowledged the facts.

"You should be headed to bed; it is far past curfew." Snape said this even as he began to maneuver her out of the room. She looked back at the mirror for a moment, silently regretting the loss as she turned and swept out of the room with Snape. They walked silently as they made their way to the dungeons, each contemplating their own visions from the mirror. Snape finally spoke again as they approached the common room, "You must promise me you will not return to the mirror," Snape said as he pulled her to a halt. There was a moment of hesitation before she nodded and gave the password to flee into the common room.

Snape's walk back to his quarters were more resigned than usual, all he could think of was the mirror, and the small glimpse he had seen. All he had really caught was a faint swirl of red as he turned away, but he knew what he would have seen. Lily with her arms wrapped around him, gazing serenely back at him. As he reached his entered his quarters he reset his wards and stepped for the empty fireplace. Snagging a snifter he poured three fingers of fire whiskey into the glass and drained it just as fast. He poured another and corked the decanter, headed for his bedroom. He nursed his glass as he readied for sleep that would take its own sweet time coming. A baleful glare was sent to an innocuous chest in the corner of the room where the proof of his wretchedness was sealed.

He drained the glass and set it on the table beside his bed as he slid between the covers. His gaze explored every line and crack in the ceiling he had memorized a thousand times over, waiting for sleep and the distant peace he obtained only in unconscious abandon.

**Well there it is! I know I'm horrible, but please forgive me… I have strawberry shortcake!**


	11. Christmas Crazy

**Well, here's the next instalment! I want to thank LemonDropsWoolSocks for reveiwing and give her a strawberry shortcake! Um... Forgot to edit before I posted so I fixed it up... oops. I hope you enjoy and please reveiw!**

Kore had kept her promise to Snape, the mirror was not visited again, but its image had burned itself on the back of her eyelids, so whenever she went to fall asleep the image would bloom like new in her mind. She had received another note from her father telling her that difficulties had been mended enough that he would be able to be home for most of the break, and Kore was grateful that she had not yet told Snape she would be staying at the castle over holiday because she would not have to face him so soon after their last run in. She was again exploring the castle, sticking to the deepest shadows and darkest halls. Only when she ran out of places to explore in these sinister passages did she risk darting into the main hall to find a new untraveled back way.

Always before on her numerous outings she had heard sniveling coming from down one hall on the second floor. At first she had assumed that it was a girl blubbering about a boy, but she had later learned that a ghost called Moaning Myrtle lived in the girl's bathroom. On this particular trip she heard only eerie silence and it took only a moment of standing undecided in the hall for Kore to go and investigate. As she slipped inside the bathroom Kore caught sight of a simmering figure sitting up in the highest window. It hugged its knees as it stared out at the grounds, seeming wistful. Kore knew no one used this bathroom because of her and took a glance around. The house elves had not neglected the room despite the lack of use and though many people had told her that the room always had puddles on the floor it was dry and Kore was mildly thankful not to have to dry out her shoes.

The ghost had noticed her as she examined the room and in a fit over her privacy being shattered, glided quickly from her perch to hover before Kore, glaring. "What do you want? I don't want to be bothered right now," Myrtle sniffed as she swept through Kore's body, sending chills down her spine. Kore glanced around for Myrtle and found her perched back in her window, glaring down at Kore. "Well?" She insisted rudely.

Kore had not expected so much hostility from the ghost and took a moment to compose herself before speaking slowly, "I'm sorry to interrupt. I was wandering and ended up here by chance… I'll go if you'd like?" Kore answered rudeness with the regal pomp and circumstance recognized in the least blunt of Slytherins. Malfoy charm was a trait she was grateful for; many unsuspecting enemies found themselves thrown off by the easy courtesy, and Myrtle was no different as she spent a minute gaping like a fish.

"You… you aren't here to make fun of me?"

"I believe that I told you I did not even particularly mean to come here at all, just a coincidence, I give my word." If Kore had been a different person, she might have laughed a bit at the surprise Myrtle was showing. "My name is Kore. You're Myrtle, correct?"

"Yes, I'm Myrtle… I'm sorry; I don't meet many new people here." She looked confused, and sad, almost to the point of crying, and Kore was ready to jump back before water could soak her shoes.

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you Myrtle… are you all right?" Kore watched as her face took on a bit of the wistful look it had shown earlier.

"Yes, I'm only thinking, it's all I really have to do in here," Myrtle mumbled as she slowly floated around. Kore's gaze followed her as she circled the room. Kore realized much of the room was blocked off by the large pillar of sinks when Myrtle rounded it and exited her sight. Kore talked to Myrtle a bit more and told her she would try to visit after the holiday to keep from being stalked by the ghost. When Kore finally made her way to bed she found that Aldred had curled on her pillow waiting for her. Kore smiled as she settled between the cool sheets and set her glasses and wand on the bedside table.

The next day Kore had left the castle with her brother and many other children as they headed home for the holiday. Aldred had curled around her throat and huddled into her warmth on the way to the train and had not released her afterward. It was a comfort to feel him there as she sat alone in her compartment where the other first year Slytherins could not bother her. She felt minor resentment that they all fell over themselves when Draco made the slightest whispered rumor. They were trying to suck up to the Malfoy heir, though Kore doubted he would be chosen. He was too reckless to be pragmatic about the family fortunes, and if handed over to his control the Malfoy wealth would disappear within the generation.

It felt as though it were a shorter trip than when she had first traveled it, and it felt as though more time should have passed as the train halted at the station. It was as busy as it had been the first day and the crowds swelled as students jumped off the train to meet their families. Kore just gathered her things and edged the crowd until she spotted her mother greeting Draco. Her father was not there to retrieve them, but her had said he would not be home to stay for another couple days. Kore sighed as she walked forward to join her estranged family members.

It was two days later that she woke early enough to catch her father still at the breakfast table, her mother had probably finished breakfast earlier and pranced off to change again. Lucius laughed a bit as his daughter stumbled into the room, somehow fully dressed and pressed, before she dropped down unceremoniously into her chair before pouring herself a cup of coffee. He said nothing as he turned the page of the paper and waited for her to wake up a bit more before he said, "You're up early; I thought you would be looking forward to sleeping in." A grimace from Kore caused him to chuckle again.

"I was, but unfortunately I realized that I have yet to buy presents, and as you told me Professor Snape would be coming for Christmas day… I will need as much time as I can to pick out a suitable gift," Kore yawned as she poured another cup of coffee. Lucius chuckled as he saw her head nod before her eyes shot open and her posture straitened.

"Yes, Severus is rather picky," Lucius nodded and snapped his paper closed, losing all interest in it. "I'll drop you off at Diagon Alley on my way to work; it isn't too much out of my way." Lucius and Kore spent the rest of their meal discussing some of the articles in the morning Prophet. As Lucius had said, he had dropped her off in Diagon alley with a shy house elf named Hobly. Most of the stores had opened already for those wives of rich and influential men who actually _enjoyed_ mornings. Lucius had given her his key to the vaults and waved her off before apparating to the Ministry. Kore had found it mildly amusing that most of the goblins looked as grumpy as she had that morning. She held tight to her glasses on the rides to and from the vault and was more than happy to leave the bank with her funds. Her mother and father were easy to shop for, and from the jewelry store she had purchased a matched set of hair pins that had emeralds set along their lengths and a set of cuff links shaped like coiled snakes with tiny onyx stones for their eyes. Her brother was harder and she ended up spending a few hours wandering until a book in the window of Flourish and Blotts caught her and she bought a copy after reading the summery. Over the next couple hours she had not found anything for Snape and finally ventured into Knockturn Alley to search out something fitting.

Borgin and Burkes, though more famous for its Dark items, also dealt in antiques though not many knew where to look. Most of the items had once belonged to famous Slytherins, or wizards of renown, and therefore they were greatly overpriced, but it was nothing a Malfoy would have issues with. Many of the pieces were beautiful but nothing that Snape would see as useful or tasteful, he being more reserved than pureblood fashion. Kore hit pay dirt on the last shelf.

It was old, but well made, not as grand as many of the bejeweled pieces that stood between it and the door but that was exactly what Snape seemed to enjoy. It was a pocket watch of purest silver with the Slytherin crest raised on its front. The cover opened to reveal the engraved name of Morpheus Rastrick, a potions master who had attended Hogwarts a century and a half ago and the creator of Veritaserum. The numbers were painted carefully on the face plate, and the hands were ornate enough to be interesting but not enough to be over the top.

Kore felt pleased with herself as she bought the heavy time piece and handed the bag off to Hobly who transported it home to set in Kore's rooms as she had with all her other purchases. Kore soon slipped into the fireplace near the back of the store where she flooed home. Her mother had found her way from the wardrobe in her room hours earlier and had heard the fire flare in the living room as Kore stepped from the flames. She came gliding into the room, a vision of elegance in silver robes, her hair done up and her make-up artfully done. Kore enviously watched her mother's innate grace as she came to greet, pushing her glasses onto the bridge of her nose once more.

"Kore, I had wondered where you might be. Just where were you exactly; I'm sure your father would love to know where his daughter was sneaking off to," Narcissa's smirk was dark and sensual as her bright blue eyes sparkled.

Kore's own stone colored eyes were dull as she stood before her mother, trying not to sound full of herself as she spoke. "I was in Diagon Alley. I found myself without gifts for the season and so I went to pick a few things up. Father apparated there to drop me off, gave me the key to the vault to get funds. You may verify this with Hobly, the house elf father sent with me, if you feel the need." Kore blankly watched as her mother realized her daughter was once more in the clear. She walked off with the grace of a storm passing overhead, dark clouds churning and rolling.

Kore could only sigh as she made her way to her rooms and once again summoned Hobly. She set him to wrapping after she had written out the tags. Soon they sat in a neat cluster of perfectly wrapped silver presents, all but one topped with a silver bow. Hobly was sent to take the gifts down to sit near the tree decorated in black and silver against tree needles transfigured to tiny emerald spears so that everything caught the warm glow of the candles burning in tiny clear globes on the tree and refracted into sparkling fairy wisps into the room. It wasn't long before the tell tale crack of an apperation rang in the entry hall. Lucius was home and the other inhabitants of the home slipped back into the façade they put up to be the perfect little pureblood family.

**I offer Apple or Cherry Strudel for all that reveiw!**


	12. Chipping Ice

**I'm so sorry I haven't posted before now! School has been so hectic! LemonDropsWoolSocks gets a cherry toster strudle as requested and on with the story!**

It wasn't long before Christmas Day was upon them all. Narcissa had taken Draco shopping a couple of days after Kore had gone and they had both buried their rooms in the piles of presents they would be sending their friends, acquaintances, and contacts. Lucius had left most of his own shopping to Narcissa as she had a flare for picking complementary gifts. After the third day of the mother-son shopping marathon he had returned home for the holiday. Christmas Eve had been spent at a grand event put on at the Zabini Mansion, Kore had spent the night alone as she observed her families interactions though she had somehow gotten pulled into a gaggle older pureblood girls near the end as they discussed upcoming marriages to influential men in France and Russia. When she had finally pulled herself away she was thankful that she did not yet care about men in the least, they seemed to be very confusing.

They had been out very late and so Kore had thought she might not even wake the next day with her exhaustion, but the next morning she did manage to drag herself from her bed; even if it required the prodding of a house elf. She changed into a set of black robes in elegant cut and draped Aldred over her neck. She slipped on her glasses and headed down to breakfast.

Everyone was already there in their places at the table. In the seat beside hers, left unoccupied on a normal morning sat Professor Severus Snape. He looked as though he would rather be anywhere but here as she approached the table and slipped into the chair at her father's side. They all greeted her and she nodded her acknowledgement as she began to nibble upon her toast, sending mild glares at her pumpkin juice. Her mother began to speak with Draco as Lucius started up a conversation with Severus about that morning's paper. He turned the page and used the action to slide his cup close enough for his daughter to grab. Severus watched as Kore glanced to her mother and brother before taking a long drink from the cup and carefully replaced it.

The end of breakfast signaled them all to head towards the parlor to the tree of brittle emeralds. Gifts were doled out and Kore soon had a small pile of gifts beside her. A side bag from her father with the Slytherin crest and a quill with a feather of darkest black and shining silver made with replaceable nibs from her father. A necklace Kore might actually wear, of a dull colored serpent with ruby eyes on a thin chain came from her mother. Kore saw that Draco had also found the 'perfect gift' for his sibling at Flourish and Blott when she opened the package from him and found a book titled 'Beauty for the average witch' that she thanked him laughingly for. She was surprised to find a gift from Snape in the pile, but she found that it was quite fitting.

A dragon hide journal with pages as white as the snow outside. A note tucked into the spine told her it was for potion step improvements and whatever else she seemed to enjoy. It was thoughtful and well chosen and a small nod and smirk thanked him silently. Kore watched as they all opened their presents and was glad with her choice for Snape as he unwrapped her present. He weighed the heavy silver in his hand before he snapped it open. The look of surprise was enough reward for Kore; she had broken a bit of his icy reserve, that one look made him seem more human. He finally smirked as he attached the chain to his belt loop and slid the watch away. He nodded towards her much as she had earlier and sat back in his chair to listen to Lucius and Narcissa chatter.

Draco had saved the present from her for last and when he caught the title he sputtered. It seemed that he was unable to speak so Lucius pulled the book from his grasp. "'A Book of Morals,'" Lucius snorted as he handed back the book. "I can't say I'm really surprised." Narcissa immediately snatched the book away and glared at Kore. Severus realized the two had probably been doing this for years now and watched as Narcissa brooded over her son's hurt ego more than Draco did himself.

It was only much later that he was able to escape from them all and head back to Hogwarts. He was still mildly shocked at Kore Malfoy's gift. He idly wondered how long it had taken the girl to find it as he walked out of the biting cold into the main hall. He in his wondering didn't notice Dumbledore until the old man was upon him. "Ah, Severus! How was Christmas with the Malfoys?" He asked as he tugged the end of his beard. Severus blinked at the wizened man as he realized he had somehow walked the entire length of the path without realizing it.

"It was… interesting," Snape answered slowly. He was trying to avoid the prying but the Headmaster knew very well how to read him.

"It must have been, my boy. You looked like you had a bit of a shock," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled secretively as he entwined his fingers before him.

"I received a very thoughtful gift from Miss Malfoy. I… was not expecting such a thing from her." Severus skirted the question again as he began to move down to the dungeons.

"Well, she certainly is full of surprises then if she managed to shock _you_," Dumbledore gave a good natured chuckle as Severus made his escape. "Come to tea in my office tomorrow, I hardly ever see you now days my boy." Dumbledore turned before Severus could decline and disappeared into the school. Severus sighed as he realized he would have to see the too cheerful old man the next day then headed into the depths of the dungeons.

**Sooo... I'd reeeaaaallly like some reviews because one amazing person isn't enough to boost my ego. I will not set a limit, but would like to encourage you to tell me what you think... cupcakes for reviewers!**


	13. Dreams of Next Year

**I'm a horrible person who should be shot through the shins and forced to crawl over broken glass. I haven't posted and I have no real excuse for it, it was just me putting it off and saying "Oh, it'll get done next week." But that turned into nearly a whole half year. Forgive me? I solemnly swear I'll give it my all!**

Kore had truly never realized what a bother her mother was before; she assumed it was from the overexposure to her nasty temper for the last twelve years of her life. Either way, after her short stint at home for the Christmas holiday, she realized now how much she would loathe summer, and how she would long for the welcome solitude of Hogwarts to escape. It's cavernous, lonely halls had felt almost like a warm hug upon her return compared to the bitter, icy glares of her mother, and for the life of her Kore could not remember what it was she had done to cause such unwavering hate. Most of her free time after break had been spent working on school work and her own spells, mainly centering on her spell of improved eye sight, though she hadn't seemed to get much further until March. And she had stored a few bags of galleons in her trunk for the times she needed another reference from the restricted section and would have to pay Marsilius's fee, which she discovered was far less than what others demanded and procured better forgeries, meaning he raked in business from his floundering brethren as they were slowly brought to justice.

After crushing Hufflepuff in the Quidditch match Slytherin house had turned into a sort of orgy, though nothing got to far past heavy petting and Kore had slipped out of the common room to avoid the… clamor. She had hidden in the library, studying Defense Against the Dark Arts, after realizing Quivering Quirell hadn't taught them nearly as much as they needed to know by the middle of January. Most nights after the match had she found herself running into the Common Room just before curfew, just as teachers began patrolling the hall. Though on nights she had known Filtch patrolled the halls she would stay late, trusting the cat to keep her out of trouble, in return she had fed it lunch every Saturday until the end of school.

All too soon the year had slipped away and now Kore sat at the Graduation Feast for this year's seventh years and Gryffindor had been awarded the last minute House Cup, though Slytherin outplayed Gryffindor at Quidditch spectacularly so the night wasn't a total loss. Kore just wanted to go home and hibernate over the summer, thinking it would be a great way to avoid the petty remarks from her mother and be energized for next year. She watched lazily as Draco preened like a bird under the assault of complements and ego stroking, her eyes lazily wandering about the hall, glancing from tearful faces to joyous smiles until she came upon a face as miserable as she supposed her own to be. Snape slowly sipped Champaign from a fluted glass, looking down almost abjectly into the glass as though wishing for something stronger so that the room would haze away and he could be alone amongst the throng.

Kore's mind wandered back to her spell and she remembered seeing some books that might be useful in her home's library, which was only bested by the library at the Ministry, perhaps she could finish it there?

**It's short but only because it's a bridge between one year and the next, skipping over a long, boring summer that can be summed up in a few sentences instead of dragging out for your torture and my amusement. Please forgive this poor mortal. Also, raspberry drop cookies for all that review**


	14. A New Veiw

**To apologize for my absence I have posted two chapters today to get the ball rolling again!**

Kore felt the sweltering heat of the sun as she sat in the airy library in her mansion, the high arched windows allowing sunlight to defuse through the musty smell of books and dust in the air around her. She knew it was beautiful outside from brief glances at the window but she could not quite stir herself from her last minute tweaks on the eyesight spell, having found 'Temporis Augere Oculos' in one of the books in Hogwarts library and had begun modifying it to fit her needs. She had created a list of at least two dozen spells, all thrown out due to foreseeable errors to the spell, such as 'Virium Oculos' which could cause an over strengthening. She ran a hand through her short hair and settled it behind her ear uselessly as it flopped back in front of her eyes.

She sighed and inked over her last word again, trying with some effort to remember her epiphany from earlier that day, then jotted down a few more words and continued to stare at the page. She was so absorbed in her work she failed to recognize the sound of footsteps quietly approaching her from behind until her father's hand settled down on the dry page, breaking her reverie.

"Kore, must you sit inside all day? It's a beautiful day for a flight around the manor grounds and your mother and brother are having tea in the parlor."

"Father, I've only a little more to do, I'll go outside when I'm done…" Kore trailed off, almost sucked back into the land of idle thoughts.

"Isn't there anything I can bribe you with?" Lucius smirked at the rhetorical question. "Well, I guess I'll have to fly on my own." He stood strait and turned away, the smirk slipping into a grin as he heard his daughter seal her ink pot and push out her chair to follow him out of the library, leaving her work behind. "Oh, decided to join me, have you?"

"Yes Father," Kore said, sensing she had been effectively manipulated and continued speaking with a weary sigh. "We don't fly together as much as we once did, I have missed it." The two walked side by side on their way out the door, taking off and maneuvering into death defying feats for a laugh as they flew, avoiding the front lawns where the grounds were visible to the parlor windows.

As the father and daughter flew together, laughing as they did only when alone, a dark cloaked figure approached the manor at a steady walk, eyes squinted slightly against the sun. He spotted the duo idling together high in the air before one dropped and the other flew off, both twirling in the air. Snape knew the two figures without getting any closer and shook his head at Lucius' free spirit when it came to his daughter. A house elf opened the door and waved him to the library informing him Master Malfoy had already told the elves to stay out of his way. Snape's gait never wavered as her seems to float up the stairs to the library on the third floor. He was referencing a potion that had been created in the 1600's and a similar potion from the 1200's to see if there was a way to reform either brew and to do so needed the original 1200's recipe.

It was midway between the potions aisle and the transfiguration section that he found a book sitting open beside an ink pot and quill. Snape, never one to condone the writing in of rare books stopped to look over the page, which turned into reading bits and pieces if the work therein. It was Kore's handwriting but he had had no idea she was into the creation of proper spells and potions, her thoughts scattered through the pages for reference in certain brews and spells, though spells of sight seemed most prevalent, and none seemed to be any he had found before, errors in phrasing listed beside each until the last, still half finished spell that, if worded correctly, would be the prodigious equivalent for her hard work. He recognized the notebook to be the one he had gifted her over the summer and was strangely glad to see it put to good use. After a moment he closed the book and tuned to find his reference before sweeping from the manor, as silently as he had come.

Kore and Lucius spent most of the afternoon flying, Kore showing her father some new tricks she had picked up over the school year and talking about the Slytherin Quidditch Team. They had both walked into the manor in great need of baths, their hair damp enough with sweat it nearly dripped. Kore's father ordered a house elf to get their baths ready quickly and they both walked up stairs. Kore swung up to the third floor to grab her notebook before her bath so she could put it away and found it closed. She tried to remember if that was how she had left it, but for the life of her she couldn't remember. After thumbing through it and being assured that it was all in order she let it go and walked back to her room where her bath waited.

Kore found Aldred that evening after dinner lying on her pillow, stretched diagonally corner to corner. He'd grown quite a bit since she had taken him from Borgin and Burkes only a year ago, now able to circle her neck twice comfortably. Kore slid him onto his half of the pillow and slipped between the covers, tomorrow it was off to school.

Kore had been correct in the assumption that the first of September would be a tiresome day; she just hadn't known how tiring it would be so early in the day. Not yet having even boarded the train she was already exhausted with emotional ups and downs of her mother's goodbye to Draco, with loving hugs for him and a glare that shouted 'good riddance' to Kore. Lucius allowed his hand to rest on Kore's shoulder as he too was disgusted by such a public display. Kore stuck her hand in her pocket to check on Aldred, who barely fit inside anymore… she would have to apply an extension charm for him. Her glasses sat heavy on the bridge of her nose and were sliding slowly down. She quickly pushed them up, tracing the frame as she dropped her hand.

At the train's whistled warning of the approaching departure time goodbyes were finished, the Malfoy parents each slipping their favorite child a sack of galleons for the trolley, Lucius slipping Kore quite a bit more for use of a forger later in the year and they were waved onto the train. It was again a crush on the inside with new first years and returning students. Kore used Aldred to scare a first year girl out of an empty compartment and slammed the door behind her, locking the door so no one else could enter. Aldred sliped from her pocket and up to her neck as she pulled out the journal that contained her spell and waited until the train began to move to open the book and take out her wand. It was nearly an hour from the station when she decided that it was safe enough to work her spell, and concentrated on the effect she wanted before carefully folding her glasses and setting them off to the side. It was a dangerous thing to point a wand at oneself when you couldn't see, but she did it anyway, knowing that the effects, if the spell was created properly, would be well worth it.

"Augere Apto Oculos," Kore's voice sounded more confident than she felt, knowing the slightest stutter could blind her for life. Then suddenly it was as if someone had paced her glasses back on her nose, the world all sharp lines and contrast, so different from the blur that was her own sight. Kore chuckled at the difference, knowing her father would be proud of her ingenuity, and her mother far less so. The rest of the train ride Kore sat looking out the window at thing that once would have been a nearly invisible blur even with her glasses. The darkness that fell across the sky in no way kept her from seeing quite so well as it once had and she relished in the clarity. At the platform Aldred wrapped himself around her arm where she had attached her wand with a mild 'Stick' spell and held tight so as not to be shaken loose.

The horseless carriages that the returning students rode were lined up along the road that led to Hogwarts from the station and Kore managed to catch one with a couple Slytherin upperclassmen, who spent the entire ride chattering about this year's most eligible bachelor. Kore didn't listen, but stared out the window listlessly, and jumped out first the moment they reached the castle. Her spot at the back of the hall was untouched and the spaces around it empty for fools to take, Kore pushed her hair back behind her ear, huffing when it fell back before her eyes and pondered cutting it, then shook the idea off, not truly caring enough to do anything about it. Her eyes glazed over as she looked up at the head table, noticing some bouncing blonde that must be the new DADA professor due to Quirell's disappearance last year, though she hadn't cared about the disappearance enough to listen to the gossip surrounding it.

Kore glanced up to her Head of House to find him watching her with mild interest. She nodded her head and smirked as she pretended to give a damn about the sorting. From her seat she had a great view of the windows that looked into the Great Hall and spotted two familiar faces peering inside. She inclined her head towards them as she kept her eyes locked with Snape's and watched as he slipped unnoticeably from the hall, appearing moments later behind the two fools in the window. Kore turned back towards the sorting and failed to care about what happened next, only wishing for food for herself and Aldred.

**I'm not against reviews… Chocolate Cupcakes for all that do!**


	15. Professor of Puce

**Hello! I wrote a really long chapter, not realizing that I didn't stop but I hope you like it! Lockhart is an idiot. And sadly no one has reviewed on my last chapter… I love reviews, they tell me how I'm doing as an author… If I get enough reviews I'll force Kore to open to the next chapter! Please review!**

Kore woke the next morning in the Slytherin dorms curled up with Aldred under her thick blankets, every girl in her dorm already awake and ready to go for the day. Kore could only groan as she sat up in bed rubbing her hands over her face before reaching for her glasses. They weren't on the bedside table and so she stood and searched for a minute before she laughed quietly at her own stupidity. She again found out how strange it was to expect glasses to be on her face and come up with naught. In a few short minutes she had secured Aldred around her throat and set about slipping from the common room with her brother's notice, which, in the hubbub of the first day was easier than it would be later on in the year. At breakfast she nibbled a piece of toast and watched as Aldred pretended his food was alive as he strangled a sausage before choking it down whole.

As the seats at the House tables filled in silly first years had sat far too close for Aldred's comfort, and he'd quietly hissed until they moved away believing the seat to be haunted by the specter of some deadly monster. Kore rolled her eyes at their murmurings and continued sipping coffee. As Snape came around with their schedules she listened to one of the older students tell the first years all about Professor Snape's cruelty to all his students, then burst out laughing at the looks on their face, letting their guide assure them that Snape wasn't going to cook them and eat them for dinner.

Snape handed out the schedules quickly, staying only a moment before gliding back around to the next child. When he reached Kore he held onto the paper a bit longer and stared down at her before raising a brow and nodding. Kore watched as he walked off before glancing at the timetable which was not nearly as interesting as it had been last year when all of these classes had been new to her. Kore found herself once again before the Gryffindor Head of House in the Transfiguration room for her first class.

Aldred stayed as still as stone where he sat around her throat and Kore envied his sleep as he didn't have to listen to McGonagall's first lecture of the year. The task was to turn beetles to buttons, which was more difficult than Kore had believed as the stupid thing kept running around the desk trying to escape, and just as it settled down and Kore would begin it would move again. The infuriating little thing was just asking to be squished. Kore finally tried another tactic, imagining the change, the shift from living to inanimate, imagined it becoming a circular ivory button with tiny holes for a delicate needle, like she often saw her mother using when she sewed. Kore opened her eyes and with that image fresh in her mind tapped the skittering beetle as McGonagall passed by. It was strange to watch the change in real life compared to her mental image of it. McGonagall's lips thinned as she looked over and saw the ivory button. Another Beetle and another button later McGonagall ceded. "Good work, Miss Malfoy, Five points to Slytherin." McGonagall had warmed up to her only slightly in the past year but she did seem to appreciate that she learned quickly. When class ends Aldred slipped away from her as she set off to Herbology after lunch but Kore did not attempt to stop him, if he felt like risking getting squashed let him, the knowledge would serve him well for future references, though when he outgrew Kore's shoulder, if he did, he would be large enough that people would move out of his way. Kore just continued on and soon found herself waiting for Professor Sprout to arrive.

Kore began wondering where Aldred had slunk off to and frowned at the thought of him _truly_ being stepped on though he was always fast enough before, but what if… it was then she heard the hiss that she always thought of as a chuckle. Twisting to find the source of the sound she saw Harry whispering to himself while he looked at the ground, though the sounds he made sounded like Aldred when Kore asked him a question. There was another chuckling hiss and Kore looked at the ground before Potter where he was staring and saw Aldred coiled and staring up at him.

"Aldred…" Kore muttered darkly as she walked toward Potter, stopping before him and waited till Aldred had noticed her and begun sliding up her leg.

"Hey-" Potter began but was cut off by the sweetly chattering voice of one Professor Gilderoy Lockhart.

"You see, Pomona, the technique is all- well hello students!" Lockhart cut off, waving his hands excessively at all of them and flashing a smile that made half of the class swoon while the boys and strangely Kore stood disgusted and unaffected. "I was just telling your lovely teacher here how to properly repair the Whomping Willow, you see, it's-"

"Yes, yes Gilderoy, you've been marvelous, now I have to teach my class." The 'lovely' Professor Sprout shooed him away, looking frazzled and, dare she say, angry enough to set the Whomping Willow on Lockhart.

"Oh, of course Pomona, I apologize; learn well, I look forward to seeing you in my class, and Harry! Good to see you!" Lockhart walked away humming happily to himself as he head back up to the castle. Kore felt sufficiently sick to her stomach and quickly surrounded herself by the second year Slytherins when she saw Potter about to speak. Aldred was soon exploring the tricky flora of the greenhouse before he settled near the window with the more mundane plants to sunbath.

Sprout began the lesson after calming herself for a moment, still looking a bit irritable but soon her usual smile was fixed. "Well then, now that… 'dear' Professor Lockhart is gone I suppose we'll just have to get to work now, shall we?" Kore had snagged a pair of silver earmuffs when she waved them to it and chuckled slightly as Draco snagged a black pair from Goyle who was then stuck with fluffy and pink. Kore turned to tell Aldred to get out before he was hurt but he was already gone from his ledge. That snake was smart, she'd give it that. When it came time to partner up she was stuck at a tray with Pansy Parkinson and the Carrow twins, who all snobbishly remarked on the Gryffindors before having to put on their earmuffs. Kore thought it was silly to have to muck about in the dirt but she consoled herself by listing off what Mandrake root could be used for, most notably the reversal of petrifications and in any restorative draughts.

Kore found that the infernal things, once yanked out of the earth, refused to be put back and it took quite a bit of packing and pushing to maneuver them under the soil. At the end of class Kore dropped the earmuffs on the table and very nearly ran from the greenhouse as she escaped the potted beast, brushing potting soil off of her robes and scourgify the stains. It was strait up to Defense Against the Dark Arts afterwards and Kore hoped he would be a better teacher than Quirell had been, though apparently he'd been faking that.

The class sat and began talking, girls swooning over Lockhart, Boys gagging over him, and Kore sat alone, half mindedly wondering where her blasted snake was. Lockhart was an exaggerated entrance from his office and settled himself before the class. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award-but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" Lockhart flashed that famed smile and it sent the girls tumbling, one girl fell from her seat in a dead faint. Lockhart cleared his throat awkwardly and toned down the charm a bit before he when on. "Yes, well, you miss," He motioned toward the girl's near petrified friend. "Mind taking her to the Hospital Wing?" There was a squeak then both girls somehow managed to fly out of the room with what Kore honestly believed to be nosebleeds.

Kore just rolled her eyes and he passed out a quiz that they were to complete before the end of class. She dipped her quill as she turned it over and promptly froze as she looked at the questions. 1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? 2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? 3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? Kore didn't honestly believe what she saw until she had read the entire packet that ended 54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be? It was not to be a DADA class, but Lockhart-ology! She tried not to make a scene; she tried not to make any outward affect of her emotion, but in the end she packed her book into her bag and stood, walking strait to the door.

"Miss, where do you think you're going?" Lockhart tried to sound imperious, but after growing up with her family she could hear the wobble in his voice when he second guessed himself.

"Anywhere but here, _Professor_," she mocked his title openly, showing with all certainty that she highly doubted his eligibility for the designation.

"Miss, I would ask that you sit back in your place…" He trailed off at the look of total contempt.

"I will not. And frankly, I'm disgusted; this is an institution of learning, not a wellspring from which you may fill your petty ego to its brim. I will not be returning to this room, I can swear this. I barely put up with Quirell, and he was trying his best to teach us nothing, but I will not allow you to fill my mind with exploits of such fantastic nature that I forget to learn to protect myself and not run strait into the fray like some bloody Gryffindor!" With that last comment Kore turned and strode out the doorway and let her feet lead her. She soon found herself one floor up in the girl's bathroom where it was not even the slightest bit damp yet. It was for the best that this bathroom was rarely used because she found Aldred sleeping in one of the sinks, though why he was in the second floor girls bathroom was a mystery in itself.

Kore took the time to splash water on her face as she cooled down, completely satisfied that the man would be much to terrified to have her in his class, but now she didn't know what to do with herself or why she had gotten so angry over it, she was always able to control herself, even with the stench of garlic hanging in the air like cheep perfume. It was amusing to think of the more mild tempered Ravenclaws putting up with the blathering if only for the grade. Strangely it was her laugh, or more aptly her chuckle, that alerted both Aldred and Myrtle to her presence.

Myrtle came flying from her stall with an enraged look upon her face, spouting off vulgarities Kore had only heard from angry goblins, and it took her a moment to recognize the young Malfoy, leaving her at a momentary lose. "O-oh, Kore! How… good to see you again. I…" Kore was sure if ghosts could flush with shame Myrtle would almost glow. Myrtle tried to salvage the situation by bypassing the entire issue. "So you're back from Summer Break. What were you laughing about?" Kore took no offence, not because she was not offended but because a ghost is easily stuck in their ways and this was one of Kore's few escapes besides flying, which she couldn't do during class because a teacher might see and report her.

"I just realized Father is going to murder me if my mother doesn't get to me first." Kore was nonplussed about the entire situation, she had no reference by which to compare and she didn't know the next actions she should take to avoid disaster. "I became mysteriously irate at Professor Lockhart and berated him before an entire class. Notification will certainly be sent to Father strait away." Aldred, who had sat in the sink until this point wrapped around her throat and squeezed just enough that it had the self same quality her father's hand resting upon her shoulder did, encouraging her to face her fears and woes.

"Well it sounds to me that your first day has been quite a bit worse than mine."

"Yes it has been. I suppose I should go report to Professor Snape before he must come looking for me, it wouldn't be seemly to be found hiding my woes in a bathroom. No offense, Myrtle." Kore sighed quietly.

"Oh, none taken, I do have a bit of a reputation," Myrtle looked almost bashful at the comment then waved Kore off and floated towards her toilet.

As Kore exited the bathroom it occurred to her to ask Aldred why he had been in the second floor bathroom, but as a rhetorical question to a snake she got no answer, though Aldred hissed as though he was replying. Kore reported herself to Snape's office, and as waited outside of it she realized he would be in a class right then as he didn't answer her knock. Kore waited in Slytherin common room until the end of the class, watching as fifth year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs streamed from the potions room before going to stand by Snape's office and wait silently, Aldred a comforting weight around her neck as his lethargy for daytime kicked in once more. The steady sound of shoes clapping against stone appeared soon after the halls had gone silent, and it was only moments before she saw Snape slide around the corner in robes as inky black as a true midnight sky.

Severus saw Kore the moment he turned the corner, it irritated him to no end to see a student, any student, though less so a Malfoy, standing beside his door. With a scowl that sent most Hufflepuffs to the Hospital Wing for a Dreamless Sleep Potion he swept up to his door and removed the wards without word or wand, and opened it, but instead of stepping in he moved aside and allowed Kore to precede him through. Neither spoke as he waved her to sit and noticed the elegant papyrus scroll sitting on his desk. Miss Malfoy, having never reported to his offices before with or without invitation, would be the least likely to be the focus of the scroll and yet, for the same reason the most likely as she made no move to defend herself. With swift motion he sat and lifted the scroll, untying the bow and scanned the content. Severus couldn't quite believe the quietest child of his friend Lucius could have caused such a condemning scene, and yet she sat before his, lips thinned, head bowed, eyes closed, as the silent, dignified picture of absolute shame. This was a Slytherin with no backup plan and no way out. She had seen her error and saw no way to repent without another scene caused again by her, though she was one of the few who longed to stay behind the scenes, a puppeteer for her plans.

She was certainly was not much of a Malfoy when it came to loss, even her father, no, especially her father, prone to hissy fits at the loss of control. "Well, Miss Malfoy, have do you have to say for yourself."

Kore had not thought about what she would say when asked to explain herself and so said the first thing that came to mind, "Lockhart's barmy and doesn't deserve to be called a professor, less so a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts." Snape could see shock in her eyes, though the rest of her face was without change. The comment and that look was enough for Snape to crack a smirk from amusement, though it was small. He thought to Lucius' reaction then it shifted to Narcissa, who would certainly find a way to make Kore's life miserable at Hogwarts even from her estate in England, and then wondered why he cared. As he thought of the note he would have to send his mind drifted, which it almost never did and he remembered that previous Christmas, and the now familiar weight of the pocket watch he had received that day from Kore. He felt it where it now sat in his front waistcoat pocket and knew why he cared, this Slytherin was promising, and interesting, and strangely thoughtful… though thoughtfulness was a trait most Pureblood families seemed to rip from their children at young ages.

Severus knew, somewhere inside him that he was doing this because of that thoughtfulness, of which he had seldom been at the receiving end, when he penned a short note to Lockhart acknowledging the time of her detention and that he would teach the girl and keep her away from the Defense classroom. With that he sent it off using the interschool floo network and sat back at his desk.

"You have detention at 6:30 Friday evening, report to Lockhart's office. It is also advised you do not attend Defense Against the Dark Arts until your exams at the end of the year, he has made it quite plan you will not be welcome. Instead you will report to me at 8:00 every evening to continue with your classes." Severus lifted one brow imperially asking if she objected silently. Kore couldn't say he'd never done anything for her, but her record was what now lingered on her mind, and it was as if he knew her inner workings better than he led on. As she stood and turned to go he continued. "The detention will not count on your record… so long as this remains a first time offence, and on those same terms I will lighten the blow to your father." Kore stopped and turned back again with raised eyebrows and a grateful demeanor.

"Thank you, Professor," And with that she was gone, leaving Severus to pen his letter to her father that was an outrageous lie that would irritate Narcissa to no end, stating her removal from the DADA class was due to her advanced knowledge of spell working, Snape added that Lockhart had not a clue what to do in a class room and it appealed to Snape's more sadistic nature that Narcissa would be as pleased with this as she had been over Kore's present to Draco over Christmas.

**Well, strawberry suckers for all that review**


	16. Dangerous Detentions

Kore realized that Snape would be a demanding teacher, but she didn't regret her actions towards Lockhart. She would prefer a rigorous teacher to a lack-wit any day, and Kore could see his obvious passion for the subject. It made her wonder why he had not taken the DADA position to begin with. That evening she reported barely on time to Lockhart's office after dragging her feet on the way there, Aldred had wrapped himself around her throat and looked quite like a bejeweled necklace charmed to twist and breath. He hadn't released her since after her last class of the day, he had been agitated about something since they had left Myrtle's bathroom earlier that day.

Knocking on the door it swung open as though the dullard had been waiting behind it in anticipation of her arrival, the idiot. In a mantel of lavender and violet, matching hat sealed to his curly hair, he waved her in with a welcoming, slightly awkward smile. "Miss Malfoy! A pleasure to see you again," his airy voice was twinkling, and thick with glamour, but Kore could only tell because this particular glamour seemed to work only upon those that held interest of a more sensual nature than stringing him up by those shiny white teeth and beating bludgers at him.

"I'm sure, Professor." Kore did not hide her distain or reluctance at entering the room though she saw Harry Potter, now this detention couldn't possibly go well at all.

"Yes, well, um- shall we get started? Harry has already arrived and gotten started on some of my replies, oh I've needed the help dreadfully, with so much mail coming in." Lockhart settled into the chair beside her where she sat opposite of Harry. The two children's eyes met and even with the rivalry there could be only mutual dread at the next couple hours work ahead of them. Kore reached for the nearest stack of letters and found it to be Greek. "Oh, Miss Malfoy, those are the letters I've yet to translate, please allow me," Lockhart raised his wand toward the letters and from the look in Potter's eye it wasn't a good thing.

"Sir, I'll save you the trouble." Kore said breezily, nodding carefully to Harry. "I am well versed in Greek; I see no need for the text to be translated." And it was true, before Hogwarts Kore and her brother had been drilled in the languages of the wizarding realms from young ages, though Draco had never managed the flawless execution of any of them, he was far less patient with the work, and to save face they never really spoke of it. Lockhart looked very downtrodden but Kore cared less about that than she did about living through the evening. Aldred chuffed as though snickering and adjusted his place while Kore opened the first of many letters before her.

"Αγαπημένη_ Gilderoy,_

(Dearest Gilderoy,)

_Είμαι πιο_ ένθερμους αγαπημένη σας και ευχόμαστε ότι θα επιτρέψουν μου το χέρι σου στο γάμο…

(I am your most ardent beloved and wish for you to allow me your hand in marriage….)"

Kore blanched at the revolting proposal and set it aside to open another but it turned out much the same, the rest of the detention was spent in a form of torture she had never before encountered, she poured through letters, each more sickening than the last, and began to feel the night wear on her. It was late when Aldred cinched around her throat, quivering. Kore watched as Potter glanced about wide eyed and nervous.

"Did you hear that?" Potter broke Lockhart from his recount of the time he had slayed a troll in Hungary just as it was about to eat a poor girl left as sacrifice to keep it from the nearby town.

"Hear what Potter?" Kore saw Aldred following Potter's gaze to the wall behind him, something was there. Kore tried to hear, and heard whispering, or perhaps it was hissing… but she couldn't be sure.

"Nothing… I suppose I was just hearing things." Lockhart glanced around and caught sight of the time, nearly ten, and past curfew.

"Well, I can understand, it is far later than I thought, we're all probably quite exhausted, you two should go, I can finish this later." Lockhart flourished his hand and smiled breezily. Potter grimaced and ran for the door, Kore was close behind. She would have to sneak down to the dungeon in the dark, how a teacher could be quite so stupid she didn't know.

As Kore moved further from the room, and consequently further from Harry, Aldred loosened against her throat. "What is wrong with you, you silly beast?" She mumbled. It had been a long evening and so her thoughts did not linger, but instead she felt dead on her feet, and fell fast asleep almost as soon as she fell into bed.

And so Kore continued from that day on with an extra free period on days her brother had D.A.D.A. He had tried to whine his way into Kore's class with Severus, and Kore couldn't blame him, Lockhart truly sucked as a teacher, but when Severus implied the consequences his Father might enforce from being shunned from a class after his sister's disappointing outburst, well Draco shut up quickly. Kore appreciated that Snape had kept her separate from Draco but he was Draco's godfather… she wouldn't have had the right to complain. Her classes with Snape were interesting, and advanced. They now met twice a week, on Tuesday's and Thursday's for a session on the theory before she moved onto the practical, though it was suggested she practice and study outside of class.

Over the course of the month Aldred had been more than a companion, he was constantly there with her, hanging about her neck, hiding in her bag, as though something was coming. It had come to a climax when Peeves had dropped a cabinet almost on top of a group of students that he had lashed out intending to bight a First Year Hufflepuff that was standing to close. Kore had been only just able to grab him and shove him deep into a pocket. And then, as suddenly as the wave of protectiveness started it was done, Aldred went back to his wanderings about the castle, and Kore put the strange behavior out of her mind. Kore thought it really was for the best that Aldred was off, away from her class with Snape, he had told her to prepare for a duel, Aldred could have bitten him.

Promptly at five she knocked on Professor Snape's classroom door, as she always did, and when she had been given entry, walked into the room. Unlike always, this time she had to fling herself to the side in an attempt to avoid a murmured "_Stupefy."_

Kore understood her father's insistence that she keep her wand in an arm holster now as she flicked out her wand and shot a return, hiding amongst the desks and stools._ "Expelliarmus!" _

"_Diffindo!"_ Her teacher cast the spell and it bounced off of her quickly uttered shield charm. Kore wondered if Snape really was trying to kill her.

"_Duro!"_ Kore leaned around one desk and flung the spell before rolling away, and just in time as Snape shot a blasting curse towards her head, she didn't notice Aldred slipping away in the chaos. The impromptu battle continued for several more minutes, the spells getting more dangerous as Snape and Kore dodged and shielded and hid. It only ended when Kore was hit by a full body-bind curse. She lay on the ground, hand clutched around her wand as she waited to be freed. Snape relieved her of her wand before casting "_Finite incantatem."_

Kore sat up slowly, and looked at Snape, a bit irritated. "May I ask why you attacked me?" Snape smirked and Kore stood, holding her hand out for her wand.

"I didn't expect you to last nearly as long," He handed her wand back and watched as she cast a cleaning carm on her robes. "You did better than I expected, better than Draco, least ways."

"It was a test then," It wasn't a question, Snape answered anyway.

"Yes. I am you're defense teacher, you should have expected it."

Kore nodded and tucked her wand away again and just noticed Aldred missing as she spotted him off to the side of the room. "Didn't feel like getting stepped on?" Kore asked as she picked him up and wrapped him back around her neck twice, his coils were loose and his head rested in the hollow of her collarbone. Kore saw Snape watching her and looked up at him.

Snape blinked and cleared his throat quietly, "Now, shall we begin class?" Kore nodded and set her bag to the side, pulling out a piece of parchment, her quill and inkwell, today would be theory.


	17. Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Just a hint: This author really likes reviews, even if it's just 'Good Job,' or 'Keep updating damn it!' It makes my day so if I could beg you to review I will do so.**

**Also: This author does not own any character or location you can recognize from J. K.'s books, Kore and Aldred belong to her though so she would appreciate if you didn't steal them, thanks. **

A month or so had passed since the day of Kore's detention with Lockhart and Aldred had returned to his snapish, over protective self, since her dismissal from Lockhart's class. He didn't leave her side when she left her dorm unless she was testing or practicing spells with Snape. The teachers were disturbed and the students avoided her, but in the last couple days Aldred had cooled down enough to let her go to class on her own.

On Halloween, Kore's birthday, she was restless, as Aldred had been. It had begun before she'd even opened her presents from her father. Occasionally she had thought she heard the whispering noise from the night of her detention, but it was always gone before she could listen to closely. She didn't want to sit still and so, not very hungry anyways, decided to wander about the a quick stop at Myrtle's bathroom to say hello she set off into the gloomy halls. It was late, and at dinner the halls were empty and silent, and Hogwarts felt larger than it did when there were the sounds of other voices nearby. Kore stroked Aldred slowly as she wandered through the shadowy halls and dark corners.

Aldred looked up suddenly and his coils tightened around her, eyes gazing towards a staircase. His tongue flicked out and in again, tasting, and his tail thrashed. Kore loosened his coils and walked up the stairs, following the direction Aldred looked, and she began to hear the hissing again, louder this time, more real. She turned the corner once more and all the hissing stopped, it was silent and maddening. She first saw the message on the wall, ruby red and dripping like strawberry sauce from a dessert cake, 'Enemies of the Heir beware, the Chamber of Secrets is open.' Then she saw the cat, the furry body of Mrs. Norris, petrified.

She didn't react much at all, her eyes widened and a brow lifted, but when Harry Potter and the rest of the Golden Trio rounded the corner she was stoic and composed. The three looked at her in terror and Aldred rose from her throat, hissing menacingly, his fangs bared and shining with venom. Harry took a step back and grabbed Ron's hand as he lifted his arm, gripping his wand. Aldred dropped his head and the swarm of students descended. Kore tried to slip into the group of Slytherins but the kindly voice of Albus Dumbledore called her back.

"Miss Malfoy, if I might have a word?"

She straitened her shoulders and returned to stand before the headmaster. "Yes Headmaster?"

"Follow me Miss Malfoy. Argus you too, and Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger as well." The old Headmaster smiled blithely while Filch tried to convince him that Potter was at fault.

Lockhart skipped up eagerly, "My office is nearest, Headmaster - just upstairs - please feel free…"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore. Lockhart led the way to his office, and ushered them inside eagerly, pictures of himself rushing away, hair in curlers and some wearing mud masks.

Kore stood silently to the side, next to Snape. In a room full of Gryffindors it was the safest place. Aldred hissed in her ear and slid about to wrap around her arm, staring at the petrified cat on the table. She had to digress that sometimes her head of house was a bitter man who held his grudges well, but she'd never say it to his face. She began listening more avidly to the conversation around her as McGonagall set her gaze down on the lone Slytherin.

"Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't he at the Halloween feast?" Snape questioned, and the golden trio burst into explanation about a death-day party for their house ghost. The answer wasn't good enough for Snape but he had to let it go when McGonagall interrupted him.

"And what of your student, why was she in the upstairs hallway? Your Common room is in the dungeons, so what is her alibi?" McGonagall was sharp alright, but her eyes were sharper. Snape looked down at her and nodded at her, letting her speak.

"I went up to say Happy Halloween to Myrtle, Professor. On my way down to my common room I heard something… I'm not sure what, but I followed it and I found Mrs. Norris hanging there." Kore turned to Filch and did her best to look sympathetic. "I'm sorry sir, but I got there before the Gryffindors, Potter isn't the culprit, unless he came back to frame himself."

Filch glared at Potter anyway, still convinced but Kore was trying to get McGonagall off her back, nothing more, and if Kore defended her little Gryffindors she might lay off.

"Thank you Miss Malfoy. In the meantime, we shall leave Mrs. Norris in the capable hands of Madame Pomfrey. I happen to know that Professor Sprout has obtained mandrakes this year. When they are fully grown a potion will be made to revive Mrs. Norris." Dumbledore said patiently. Kore admitted only to herself that she was relieved; Mrs. Norris was a scrawny, mangy beast, but she was fairly loyal, even if it was only to the lunch scraps proffered by Kore, and was rather sweet when Filch was away.

"I'll make it! I must have made that very draught a hundred times…" Lockhart bustled, probably irritated at being ignored by his so called 'colleagues' that he felt the need to boast.

"Excuse me." Snape's voice was icy and sharp, sending chills down more than one students spin, Kore just looked down to roll her eyes. "I do believe _I_ am the Potions Master at this school."

The silence was awkward and stretching.

"You may go." Dumbledore said to Kore and the Golden Trio. The Gryffindors went running and Kore looked to her Head of House, who had placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I should escort Miss Malfoy down," And with that they swished out of the room, robes billowing in a way only a Malfoy… or a very intimidating Potions Professor could manage. The walk was silent until they were in the dungeons where Snape slowed his pace and turned slightly to Kore. "I will not ask what you were truly doing, but I do ask you do it more carefully, something dangerous has awoken in these walls." Kore nodded silently, and slipped her hand into her pocket where she had felt Aldred hide earlier, he woke to the touch of her fingers and wrapped up her arm, very visible against the black of her school robes. "Now go to bed, and don't get in trouble for the next few days, I can't be around to vouch for you always." And with that he continues on to his own rooms.

Kore entered the common room with Aldred still about her arm. With a poisonous snake around her the rest of her house would be less likely to irritate her with questions about the barmy Headmaster and Filch's petrified cat.

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